


QC Boy's Club

by alayneni



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alayneni/pseuds/alayneni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Oliver Queen is in need of some IT support for a laptop and is directed to Felicity Smoak. He inadvertently pisses her off which leads to a challenge from Thea meant to teach him a lesson. Soon he uncovers a plot to take over his father's company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Meeting

AN: I do not own Arrow

Ch 1 – The First Meeting

Oliver Queen sat in the board room of Queen Consolidated listening to yet another department head talk about the company's performance in the last quarter. They had been at this since 9:00am and it was already 2:00pm with five more division heads to go. It didn't help that every time his attention drifted, Walter Steele, CEO of QC, kept pulling his attention back to the presentation being given. The current presenter was the head of the Applied Sciences Division. Oliver felt like he needed a translator to understand what the man was saying and judging by the look on some of the other department heads, he wasn't the only one in that category for a change. There was one presentation to come that he was looking forward to, Ms. Isabel Rochev's, Vice President of QC and Head of Foreign Operations. She was always entertaining. Of course that might also have to do with the fact that he had a few clandestine rendezvous with her and some of the supposedly innocent things she would say during her presentations were codes for things she had done with Oliver.

It was past 9:00pm when the meeting had finally finished and Oliver needed a nice relaxing night but it was a Friday and he had to work on keeping his public playboy image intact. A few of the Department Heads, Derrick from Marketing, Liam from IT, Ben from Accounts and Jake from the Audit department were asking for VIP passes to Verdant, the hottest night club in Starling City which he just happened to co-own with his best friend Tommy Merlyn.

Oliver gave the men one his signature Oliver Queen smiles "Not a problem gentlemen, I'll have your names added to the list for tonight."

A round a raucous laughter erupted from the men and they headed to the elevators talking about who would get laid that night, never mind that Oliver was sure that half of them were married. He glanced over at Walter and let him know he would be heading off as well and he joined the men in front of the elevators. He half halfheartedly listened to their conversation while wondering if the Applied Science Division couldn't come up with a super speed elevator.

"Derrick, perhaps maybe tonight you could avoid getting pepper sprayed!" Ben teased.

Derrick's face soured. "That was one time and it was that blonde nerdy chick in Liam's department. Have you fired her yet?"

"Still looking for an excuse that would stand up with HR and court in case she sues," Liam responded.

"That prude would definitely sue," Jake chimed in.

The ding of the elevator sounded and the men stepped into the elevator. Oliver decided he would let them go and take the next one. He hadn't cared much for their conversation and despite the playboy image that he actively portrayed to the world, womanising was something he had actually given up. His thoughts turned to Verdant. It was an experiment and it was proving that he could be a good businessman. It had been Walter's idea for him to try a business outside of QC to practice the application of the business principles he was learning in college. Walter certainly didn't want him experimenting on QC, even though Oliver was slowly being included in the operational aspects of the company. Oliver had dropped out of four colleges and was now in his fifth, Starling City University Business School, thanks to Walter. This college experience though was proving very different to his previous attempts at getting a degree. For one thing, he had managed to stick with it. He had three years completed and was on his last and final year. He was looking forward to the submission of his final project, which he already knew he was going to do on Verdant.

Monday morning found Oliver and Thea at the University Coffee Shop for their ritual cup of coffee to start off a new week. Thea was in her first year studying strategic marketing but she was currently groaning about the Spanish class she had chosen to take as an elective in her first year. She had thought learning Spanish would make it easy to pick up some hot latin guys but the actual learning of the subject was proving to be more difficult than she imagined.

The barista came over to shamelessly flirt with Oliver, like she did every Monday and Thea did her sisterly duty and shooed her away.

"So how was the club this weekend?" Thea asked casually,

"You're not allowed to come to the club," Oliver answered automatically.

"Why? Maybe I could find a hot Latin guy to tutor me in Spanish?" She countered.

"You're not finding a hot anything to tutor you," Oliver stated firmly.

"That's not fair!" Thea exclaimed.

"Life isn't fair," Oliver pointed out.

"Fine," Thea said angrily standing up sending her chair flying backwards into the chair of a guy dressed in a red hoodie. He had just lifted his espresso to his mouth, when the sudden jerk sent him forward spilling the drink across his laptop. A few loud curses sprung from his mouth before he turned to glare at the cause of the problem.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." Thea exclaimed using the most innocent expression she could make.

All of the anger seemed to deflate out of the man as he watched her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

"It's ok, as long as the laptop is fine," He said.

"I can buy you a new one?" Thea offered. Money wasn't a problem for her and the way the boy was dressed, he looked like he could use a break.

"Roy Harper," he said holding out his hand and eyeing her carefully. She was young, probably a freshman like him, but she didn't have the look of a person struggling to pay tuition and holding down two jobs. No her fancy manicure on her hands said she hadn't worked a day in her life and he certainly could do with a new laptop. This one was old, very slow and stolen. He had no problems getting a new laptop legally from someone who could more than afford it.

"Thea Queen," she responded easily. "Here's my number. I'll have that new laptop for you by the end of the week."

Roy took the card and watched the young girl march out of the coffee shop. He glanced at the guy she was sitting with and recognised him as Oliver Queen and he was on the receiving end of what looked like a quite deadly glare from the Queen heir. He shrugged it off. Where he was from he had seen much worse, his only interest in his sister, was a brand new laptop. He pocketed the number, collected the old laptop that he was hoping he could sell for parts now and headed to his next class.

Oliver's office was a small space that had been squeezed in between the VP's offices. It had belonged to a secretary before but she was moved to give him a workspace. It was Thursday and he only had one class early in the morning, which he would usually attend before coming into QC. Because he was still taking classes, his work load at QC was light. He mainly reviewed work that was already approved by Walter for him to gain an insight into how the company worked and what the role of the CEO was. Nothing had been brought to him today so he was working on a paper for his business ethics class. That was his most boring class and he didn't understand why he had to take it when the business world was not exactly the most ethical world. He was interrupted from his paper when the door to his office opened and Isabel waltzed in.

"Hello lover," She all but purred at him. She was in one of those moods, the mood where their relationship would become on again.

Oliver sighed and put on his fake smile. "Hello Isabel, as nice as it is to see you, I have a paper to finish that I need to hand in tomorrow by 5:00pm," he told her and returned his attention to the laptop.  
She pushed the screen of the laptop down and Oliver barely moved his hands in time before the cover came slamming down.

"I'm sure you can spare me a few minutes, well maybe an hour." She clarified leaning forward for him to get a good view down the front of her business suit. A good enough view for him to realise she wasn't wearing a bra. He swallowed.

"I really need to get this done," Oliver answered as he pulled at the tie around his neck. It had suddenly become kind of hot in there.

"I'm sure you can finish this off later." She said leaning further forward.

Oliver leaned back in his chair to put more distance between them. He was so close to graduating, to completing his degree, he had promised Walter he would not screw it up this time. "I need to finish it before I get home." He insisted.

A flash of anger went through her eyes. He knew she could be very spiteful when she didn't get her way. He had seen her make grown men cry.

"My secretary has some files in a box that need filing in the storage room in the basement. Why don't you go help her with it now." Isabel ordered.

Oliver glared. She was using their secret hook-ups over him to get him to do what she wanted. He was no woman's pawn but he did not want to disappoint Walter after everything the man had taught him.

"Fine," He stood abruptly, his jaw clenching in anger. "Just remember, that one day I will be CEO, and we'll see who will be pulling the strings then."  
His threat had no effect on her and as soon as he left the office, her attention turned to his laptop and a wicked smile formed on her face.

Oliver returned half an hour later to find his laptop missing and he immediately knew Isabel had taken it. He marched right past her secretary and into her office demanding she return his laptop.

"I like it when you're angry," She purred.

"Where is my laptop Isabel?" He asked in a dangerous tone.

"Fine if you want it, that's it in the corner," Isabel said pointing to a laptop that now resembled a pile of parts semi encased in metal case with the QC logo on it.

Oliver stared in shock at the remains of his laptop, his fists clenching automatically. He glanced angrily at her, "Don't ever expect us to be on again." He grabbed his laptop, if he could even call it that now and exited her office. He headed straight to the IT department and went immediately to Liam's office. There had to be some expert in QC that could help him.

"Oliver, how nice to see you, what brings you down here?" Liam asked with a smile that was clearly as fake as his greeting.

"I have a little issue with my QC laptop" he said but did not show the man the state in which the laptop was. "I need someone to get the data off of it for me. It crashed and the files on it are very important to me." Oliver stressed.

The IT head thought for a moment before a light bulb seemed to go off in his head and he got a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"I know just the person that can fix it for you. The cubicle in the back over there" Liam said pointing to the back of the room, as far away from his office as you could get. "Felicity Smoak"

"Ok thanks." Oliver said though he wondered what Liam was setting him up for. He hated been toyed with.

Oliver made his way through the maze of cubicles to the one in the back of the room. He saw a girl in a pink shirt, and black pencil skirt, chewing away at the end of a red pen. She seemed very engrossed in the work she was doing.

"Felicity Smoak," He said drawing her attention towards him. "Hi, I'm Oliver Queen." He finished off with his most charming smile.

"Of course, I know who you are, you are Mr. Queen," She said flustered with her pen waving in the air.

"No," Oliver said with a slight shake of his head. "Mr. Queen was my father."

"Yes but he's dead. He was shot, in front of you, you were both shot, but you survived, so you can obviously come down to the IT department to hear me babble, I'm stopping in 3, 2, 1." She dropped her gaze to her desk and then looked back up at him ready to hear why he was in her cubicle. He couldn't help but give her a small smile, a real smile.

"I spilled a latte on my laptop and they said you could fix it for me." Oliver said as he placed the damaged laptop on her desk for her inspection.

"Really," she said as her head tilted to the side while she surveyed the laptop. She looked innocently up at him, "because this looks like an 18 wheeler ran over it, stopped and then backed up over it again."

"If there is anything you can salvage from it, I would really appreciate it." He said with what he hoped with his most charming smile. He really needed that paper.

She glanced at the laptop barely recognising it as one of the laptops issued to top level management. "It would probably be easier just for me to issue you a new QC laptop." She suggested.

"But I have several important QC documents and e-mails that I need on there." He responded.

"If they are important, there will be copies on the server, and your e-mails are backed up on the mail server so you won't lose any of those." She explained to him.

"But I have personal files on here too." Oliver further pressed.

"Well I guess since you are Oliver Queen, I shouldn't really point out that the IT policy states that company laptops should be used for company business only but I guess that doesn't apply to you." Oliver frowned. He felt like he was being scolded like a little school boy. "Leave the laptop with me and I'll try to see what I can get from it. No pornography or pictures of naked women though. If you want those, you've lost those for good." She added.

He laughed, "I can assure you that I didn't use the QC laptop for that type of personal business." Suddenly feeling the need to reinforce his playboy image, he added with a smirk, "I have real supermodels to entertain those needs."

"Then please try to keep the supermodels away from the laptop next time." She commented dryly as she moved the laptop to the other side of her workstation and resumed whatever her previous task was. Oliver wondered how she knew a woman was responsible for the state of the poor device but he took her return to her work as his cue to leave. On his way out he saw Liam hovering just outside the cubicle pretending to be dropping files on another person's desk.

The man followed Oliver out into the corridor outside. "I'm sorry if she was rude to you. I can have her written up for it?" He offered. Oliver's mind suddenly flashed to the conversation at the elevator and the firing of a blonde in the IT department.

"Wait is that the girl with the pepper spray incident?" he asked

"Yes, she has quite the bad attitude." Liam responded. He had seen a chance to get rid of Felicity. He knew she disliked it when persons abused the company's computers and he was fairly sure that Oliver Queen would have abused his laptop and once Felicity got started about the proper use for a computer, her endless babble would be her undoing.

Oliver nodded, having just been on the receiving end of one of Isabel's manipulations, he now understood what the man was trying to do to Felicity, "Make one attempt to fire her and I'll get Walter to sign your pink slip instead."

Oliver left abruptly leaving behind a shocked IT manager.

Later that evening when Walter arrived home, he delivered a brand new laptop to Oliver who was sitting in the study pouring over the hand written outline of the paper he had written during one of his classes.

"Felicity Smoak sent this for you. She's the best and brightest person in that department, so whatever problem you were having I'm sure she fixed it." Walter said kindly to him.  
Oliver nodded and watched the shiny laptop. Had she really been able to help him? He opened the laptop and inside was a sticky note and scrawly handwriting that he would not have associated with a girl.

Username: Quiver  
Password: Oleen  
Get it? I switched the first two letters of your first and last names.

He chuckled at her note as he booted it up hoping that she worked a miracle and that all of his files were there. The username and password prompts came up and he entered the information provided. The computer loaded with the same desktop background that he had previously, a picture of a remote island in the North China Sea, Lian Yu, where he had done some survival training about a year after he got out of the hospital. He thought this was a good sign, he pressed the start button and then a video seemed to automatically load. Felicity appeared before him with a frown on her face.

"For the future CEO of QC, you sure need to upgrade your computer skills! And change all the passwords to your accounts, they are way too easy to hack, not that I'm saying that I hacked them, they were saved on your computer which you asked me to recover the files on, and I'm babbling again 3,2,1 " she said

Oliver frowned. Again she was chastising him.

"This is a simple tutorial to show you how to use the power of your laptop to the fullest and not store everything on your desktop! This by the way, can compromise the performance of your laptop."  
He watched as the first order of business was for him to change the password on the laptop. She spent at least five minutes explaining the proper length of a password and the use of capital letters, numbers and secret characters in passwords. She then admonished that bikinibabe, while being longer than four letters unlike his hotmail password, was still a poor password. She even commented that it was a good thing he had had the sense not to use his real name for any of his online accounts or he would have been hacked ages ago.

Her next wave of criticism concerned the files on his computer. Nothing was stored in any order or labelled properly. He had remembered creating files for his school work but he had just been saving his documents wherever the last file he had opened was. She went through explaining where she moved all of his files to and that yes she had worked a miracle and recovered everything for him. She had set up six desktop shortcuts. One each for QC files, Verdant files, SCU files, music, pictures and misc. Finally she ended with:

"If you need further IT help, like updating your passwords on your phone to the new passwords for your e-mail accounts, another subtle hint to change your passwords in case you missed it before, you know where my cubicle is!"

As the video closed, he saw the six icons on his desktop as well as another icon marked tutorial. He really didn't think he needed to go through that tutorial again. He went straight to the SCU files and was relieved to find all of his papers there, especially the one which was due the next day. Then he went to Verdant files, music, pictures and then QC. She hadn't missed a file. He decided he would send her flowers as a thank you for a job well done but first he needed to pull an all-nighter to finish off his paper. It was a good thing Verdant was only open on a Friday and Saturday.

Early Friday morning, Felicity Smoak stormed into his office. He had been sitting at his desk and Thea had been sitting on a chair behind the open door researching laptops. They both had to go to SCU today for group projects so she decided to spend some time with her brother at QC first.

"Flowers!" Felicity exclaimed angrily.

"It's usually what someone gives as a thank you." Oliver replied confused as he rose from his chair and came around his desk to stand in front of her.

"Not if you want the entire building thinking I'm sleeping with you, which by the way, they all think I'm doing now, especially after what you personally wrote on the card, cause apparently the secretaries here know your handwriting really well and were able to confirm it was your handwriting." She said as she poked a finger into his chest. A chest she noted was really hard but she filed that thought away to the back of her brain for later inspection. She also noticed how tall he was compared to her and how broad his shoulders were. There was definitely a reason women flocked to him.

"All I wrote was thanks for a job well done." He added.

"Yeah, job, which could be a code word for sex, not that I wouldn't have sex with you, I'm mean you are really hot, and my boyfriends have never complained about by bedroom performance, gosh someone stop me now!" the flustered blonde begged as she was sure that her face wasn't red from anger anymore.

"Felicity, breathe." Oliver said putting a hand on her shoulder and looking into her blue eyes which Felicity thought would not help her blush but she did need to breathe.

He was pleased when she followed his instructions.

"It's just flowers. It's no big deal." Oliver tried to tell her as his thumb absently started to rub circles on her shoulder in an effort to calm her down.

"Oliver, you may not value your reputation, but I value mine. I do not want to be known as another notch on your bedpost. I'm going to have the QC Boys Club hitting on me again, thinking I'm easy and I worked so hard to get them to leave me alone the last time. If you were a woman, you would understand what it's like with this ridiculous double standard!" the blonde furiously explained to him.

Felicity turned around to leave and spotted Thea for the first time. A wave of embarrassment washed over but then she held her head up high and looked directly at Thea, "Good day Ms. Queen, I'll just be leaving now. I need to go find where my dignity ran off to." Felicity snapped her mouth shut before she embarrassed herself further and quickly disappeared through the door.

He sighed and glanced at his sister who had the most mischievous smile on her face. He knew that smile well but Thea's words would scare him even more.

"I like her Ollie, she has a point about the reputation thing. This could be a good final project for that business ethics class you spoke about. You could explore ethics as it applies to a man vs a woman. I think it's time for you to become a girl Ollie!"


	2. Olivia Harper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The transformation occurs!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow

Oliver closed up the club at 4:00am and collapsed in bed roughly half an hour later with thoughts of finding a club manager to handle the club since both he and Tommy now had more commitments to their respective father’s companies. He would mention it to Tommy this week because he couldn’t possibly start work full time at QC in a few months and run the club. The club was only open on Fridays and Saturdays, with the addition of a full time club manager, they could probably expand the operations of the club.

Somewhere in the middle of a particularly nightmarish dream about failing his business statistics class, he was rudely awakened by water being poured on his face, causing him to spring awake and nearly murder his not so innocent little sister.

“Thea! What the hell?” Oliver’s angry voiced bounced off the walls harshly.

“It’s time to get up, you have a busy schedule ahead of you and you’re already late for your first appointment,” Thea chirped as she bounced on her feet in excitement.

Oliver glanced at his clock, 8:03am, “Speedy, I keep my Saturday and Sunday mornings appointment free because of the late nights at Verdant,” he reminded her.

“I know but I need a full two days to turn you into a girl.” She said happily. “I always wanted a sister.”

Oliver rubbed his temple, what nonsense was she talking about now. 

“Thea, I have no idea why you want to turn me into a girl or if I should be finding you a therapist but nothing, is more important than sleep right now.” He said as he turned his back to her and tried to settle back into his bed. The pillow proved to be wet, so he chucked it at her and grabbed another pillow on the bed. He pulled his sheets and comforter up to cover himself and tried to get back to sleep though hopefully to a nicer dream this time.

The curtains in his room were suddenly flung open letting in bright rays of sunshine that were definitely not conducive to sleep. 

“Thea,” Oliver said warningly, covering his head with his pillow to block out the light.

“I’m doing this for you.” She responded as she sat down at the edge of his bed.

Yeap, it was definitely time to send his baby sister to a therapist, but not the same one they made him go to after his father’s shooting. No, that man had done nothing to help him. 

“Oliver please, this is a great idea. You’ll get an A for sure.” Thea pleaded with her brother.

“An A, what does this insane idea of yours have to do with my classes?” Oliver asked.

“Everything! You know you want to impress your advisor. He’s the reason you got into this college.” Thea responded.

“I know why I got into SCU.” Oliver snapped at her. He didn’t like being reminded of all the strings that Walter had to pull to get him into SCU, or the millions of dollars that his family had to donate to the school. There was a whole new business building at the school named after Robert Queen. Every time he had class, he had to go into the building. His first two years were filled with teachers that thought poorly of him and fellow students that called him the spoilt rich brat, of course none of them said that to his face. To prove them all wrong, he threw himself into his schoolwork even taking summer classes to get ahead. Those classes were the reason why he only had two classes in his final semester plus his final project. 

“Your final project hasn’t been approved yet.” Thea reminded Oliver.

He glared at her. He was well aware of that. He had written five proposals so far and each one was rejected by his advisor. They were supposedly mediocre and each one came back with the same comment. ‘Oliver Queen you are a man with numerous resources, develop a proposal that is deserving of the Queen family legacy.' 

“I don’t see how dressing up as a woman is deserving of the Queen family legacy?” Oliver remarked to his baby sister.

“Simple, you’re going to go undercover in Queen Consolidated as a woman. The secretary for the IT department goes on maternity leave on Friday, so you’ll start on Monday, as Olivia Harper, an intern who’s studying for her business degree at SCU, that way you can take time off to go to your classes. You’ll sort of be like an inside mole to know what staff really think of working at QC. Plus mom really likes the female aspect because she’s touted Queen Consolidated as the best place for female executives to work, you can either prove her right or wrong.”

“Wait,” Oliver said sitting up on the bed to look at his sister, “You spoke to Walter and mom about this?” Maybe his sister had actually thought through this crazy idea of hers.

“Yes and they are fully on board,” Thea chirped happily.

“I don’t have a choice do I?” Oliver groaned knowing he had lost this battle.

“Nope,” Thea said as she gave him her victory smile. 

“I’m going to try this for three days, if it doesn’t work, I’m finding something else to do.” Oliver said stretching his right hand out towards his sister.

“Deal!” Thea said shaking Oliver’s outstretched hand. “Now get dressed!” she ordered as she scurried out of his room.

-*-

Oliver came downstairs to find a flurry of activity in the drawing room. Several laptops were hooked up to a series of high tech devices all placed around a chair in the middle of the room.

“Welcome Mr. Queen,” a short guy with thick rimmed glasses said. “Please take a seat on the chair, it will take about two hours to scan your face properly so that we can complete your mask to wear. Please look at that bull’s-eye we have set up, you must not move or you will have to start the scan over.”

“Mask?” Oliver questioned.

“Yes your female face, Ollie. You certainly didn’t think you could pull off being a woman with stubble all over your face!” Thea remarked sarcastically.

“I already designed it; you’ll be a normal 21 year old brunette with green eyes.”

“Green eyes?” Oliver queried,

“Yes I don’t want anything to trace back to you and those baby blues of yours can be quite distinctive so I ordered you green contacts.”

Oliver sighed and sat in the chair and Thea picked up a video camera off of a table and started recording. 

“What is that for?” Oliver asked horrified.

“To record your progress!” Thea answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You can include the video footage in your final presentation.”

Oliver started to rub his temple before a tech swatted his hand away from his face and told him they were about to start the scan. He realised his sister was completely devoted to this insane scheme and there seemed to be no way out of it. He had two hours to sit and think of an appropriate way for his annoying little sister to pay for the embarrassment he was going to endure. 

When the scan was finished, he next met with a man from the theater who would be developing a suit for him to wear under his clothes. The suit would give him breasts and wider hips. The man had promised that these features would make him look more feminine and the addition of some curves would balance out his wide shoulders. There was nothing they could do for his arms but cover it up with nice suit jackets. He would not be allowed to wear any plunging necklines either. He was told he had to dress for his figure, whatever that meant.

He was then taken into another room where he met a lady who was going to wax his legs. 

“Thea, why do I have to wax my legs?” Oliver asked her.

“Your legs are the only asset I can emphasise. You have nice legs but you can’t show them off with that hair on them.” Thea said making a disgusted face as her right hand pointed to his legs. She then handed him one of his short pants that he used to train on his salmon ladder and told him to change and come back. 

When he returned, he sat down on the chair and the lady smeared some hot wax on the outside of his left leg. It didn’t hurt at all and he wondered why women always said waxing was painful. White strips were placed on the hot wax and then the lady suddenly pulled them off. The scream that left Oliver’s mouth left Thea in giggles. Oliver glared at her. 

“Is there any particular reason, I couldn’t just shave my legs?” Oliver asked as he braced himself for the next strip.

“Yes, waxing will last much longer; I didn’t think you would have time to shave those legs every day. You do have long legs Ollie,” Thea responded.

Once his legs were finished, his sister presented him with a selection of nail polish to wear during his charade. She told him she thought about giving him fake nails but they would have to go through too many of those and since it was cold outside he could always hide his hands in gloves when he was being Oliver Queen. She proceeded to show him how to paint his nails and he realised that she was having way more fun than him but it was nice to see his sister so happy.

After a long talk from Thea about business etiquette for women, a visit from Walter ensuring him that everything had been arranged at QC for Olivia Harper to begin work on Monday and his mother stating how proud she was of him, he headed off to the club for another long night of business.

-*-

Sunday morning Oliver grudgingly got out of bed after only four hours of sleep again. On today’s agenda he would be learning to walk like girl, walk in high heels, sit like a girl, receive voice training to sound more feminine, and receive Thea’s advice on wardrobe and how to dress. His suit and mask would also be ready by the end of the day, so the transformation into Olivia Harper would happen just before dinner. 

After a very long day, Oliver stood in his bedroom with some very achy feet. High heels were painful and he wasn’t even walking in six inch heels. Thea had only given him 1 inch to 4 inch heels to try because over 4 inches she thought he was too tall for a girl. He didn’t even know how Thea had even been able to source shoes his side or feminine clothes that covered his shoulders but she had somehow done it. The mask (and the heavy ‘handle with care’ instruction manual) had arrived a few moments ago on a mannequin, along with the inner suit for him. It was the moment of truth; time to try everything on.

Oliver slipped into the nude colour suit that only covered from his butt up to his shoulders. It was sort of a full piece bathing suit with padding on the hips and bust. He was thankful he didn’t need to wear a bra. He did not think his hands could bend behind his back like that. Besides Oliver Queen did not put bras on, he took them off!

Next he tried on one of the dresses and looked in the mirror. The dress was a deep green that stopped mid thigh on him with three quarter length sleeves. It was weird seeing his body in a dress and seeing curves where there were none before. In his younger days, had he seen a body like this, Ollie Queen would most certainly have tried to bed her. 

He put on his mask, wig and contacts and called Thea in to see the final result. She smiled but then ran out of the room returning a minute later with her hand full of bags.

“We have to do your make up,” Thea said excitedly, too excitedly if you asked Oliver. 

He sat at the edge of the bed for over an hour as Thea fussed over his face. He now understood what took women so long to get ready. There were just so many extra steps; they had to do their legs, their nails, their hair and their face. When Thea was finished, she pulled Oliver in front of the mirror.

“Ollie, meet Olivia Harper,” she said proud of her work.

“You know Speedy, if you put this much effort into all your classes at SCU, you’ll be graduating with a 4.0.” Oliver commented as he looked at his reflection in the mirror and did not recognise the person staring back at him. 

-*-

At 5:30am, his alarm went off reminding him it was time to get up and start getting dressed for work. The whole experience was very new to him. Thea had already laid out what he should wear on his first day of work and he was thankful that she had at least chosen one of the more modest outfits in his new wardrobe. He decided to eat breakfast first then get dressed.

Thea had selected a simple black suit with a plain white satin inner blouse and a knee length black pencil skirt paired with black pumps and black and white clip on earrings. Olivia was from the Glades, she couldn’t have an expensive wardrobe so everything was simple yet elegant. His jewellery was all costume and clip on, since he was not piercing his ears for this, no matter how much Thea begged him.

His wig was jet black with straight hair that reached him to the middle of his back. He wanted a wig that would be easy for him to maintain and would not require him to give it any attention during the day. According to Thea, he had to report to duty in the HR department where he would receive orientation and then meet the secretary he would be replacing for some on the job training. They had agreed to drop him off two blocks before QC and he would walk the rest of the way to the building. 

Oliver entered the QC lobby at 7:55am and he realised that if he didn’t know where the HR department was located, the building would be very intimidating so he tried to act like a shy girl. He was going to ask some of the workers entering the building for directions but the looks the men were sending him, made him reconsider this. He spotted an old security guard behind the information desk and decided to approach him.

“Excuse me sir, I’m new here, can you direct me to the HR Department?” he asked him in his feminine voice.

“Sure Miss, that won’t be a problem. Can you give me your name and what department you will be working in so I can record it in the log book?” The old guard asked kindly.

Oliver gave him the information and the guard was about to give him instructions, when he seemed to have come up with a better idea.  
“Felicity,” he called out to a blonde that had just entered into the lobby.

Oliver groaned internally. She was the trigger for his sister’s new favourite pet project.

“Fred! Hi, how are you? Any word on your granddaughter yet?” She asked smiling up at Oliver in greeting.

“No not yet,” he said sadly. “This is Olivia Harper, she’ll be replacing Marie while she’s on maternity leave. I know its above your floor but I was wondering if you could take her to HR and give her a general overview of where things are at?” he asked.

“Sure not a problem, anything for you Fred,” Felicity said happily.

“Great, Olivia Harper,” The guard said addressing Oliver, “This is Felicity Smoak, the nicest girl you’ll meet in the building and she works in your department.”

Felicity blushed at the compliment, “Don’t listen to Fred, he’s only trying to inflate my ego.”

“I don’t lie darling.” He said to her. 

“Its eight, let me clock in and I’ll show her around,” She said to Fred before turning to Oliver, “The elevators are this way, follow me.”

On the way she passed a row of sensors and passed her badge over one. It blinked acknowledging her badge and Felicity continued on to the elevators.

“Those are the scanners. You have to scan your badge in every day so the system knows you’re in the building. For the hourly paid workers like you, you head straight to the scanners as soon as you arrive because the accounting system is tied into that system and the payroll automatically works out how much you are to be paid based on the hours the system says you’re here for.” Felicity said as they joined the back of the line for the elevators. 

“Sounds like a complicated system,” Oliver said trying to ignore the looks people were giving him.

“Not really, I set it up. It works really well. What was complicated was setting up an interface for HR or Accounting staff to make adjustments for official work that happens outside of the QC building since you have to scan out once you leave the building.”

The group in front of them moved into an open elevator and bringing Oliver and Felicity to the front of the line. Two guys behind them interrupted their conversation.

“You’re new here darling,” a guy with brown curly hair said as he looked Oliver up and down. His blonde friend next to him then added, “Why don’t you dump Smoak and ride with us alone in the elevator. I’m sure we can give you a fantastic welcome to Queen Consolidated.” 

“Ignore them.” Felicity told Oliver. “They are from Marketing, on the 18th floor.”

Oliver nodded. “We are on the 2nd and 3rd floors, they like to keep the IT gremlins as from the top as they can, never mind that they probably can’t do any work without us. Your desk is on the 3rd floor, the HR department is on the 17th, the cafeteria is on the 10th and the gym is on the 5th floor.”

The elevator doors pinged open and they walked forward with the marketing guys and four other men. Felicity punched the button for 17th floor and then ignored the men that were so obviously checking Oliver out. The elevator stopped on the 6th floor and nobody moved to get out. 

Felicity turned to Oliver, “This floor is accounts, this is where the accountants are supposed to get out.” She commented dryly before turning to glare at two guys who she swore had hearts in their eyes as they gazed at Olivia.

“Oh yes, right!” One of them jumped, hitting the other on the arm as they then tried to exit the elevator as the doors were closing. 

The elevator didn’t stop again until the 17th floor, where they exited. She walked up to the secretary and introduced him to her. She then left him commenting that she would see him downstairs. 

He took a seat on one of the chairs where they kept him waiting for half an hour before the secretary told him they were ready for Ms. Harper. He followed her passed the HR Manager’s door labelled Mr. Garth Murry to an HR Officer in a cubicle who was supposed to be giving him an orientation. She was a woman of average height in her late forties with a few wrinkles and her grey hair was beginning to show at the roots. The woman looked Oliver over disdainfully and handed him a file full of information about QC and told him to go to the 3rd floor and report to Mr. Liam Russell, Manager of the IT department. Oliver was surprised that there wasn’t more to the orientation but he stood up and went back to the elevators and headed to the 3rd floor.

The elevator doors opened, and two guys carrying two towers nearly ran into him in their haste to get into the elevator.

“Sorry,” they apologised, “These are for Ms. Rochev and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Before Oliver could respond, a short girl with curly blonde hair called out to him, “Olivia, hi, I’m Marie Watson, nice to meet you. You’ll be doing my job while I’m gone. ”

“Nice to meet you too,” Oliver said in what he hoped was a girly friendly tone.

“Let me take you to meet Mr. Russell first and then I’ll introduce you to the rest of staff.” She said.

He nodded and followed her through a familiar path to Liam’s office. She knocked once and entered.

“Hi Mr. Russell, this is Ms. Olivia Harper, she’ll be holding on for me while I’m gone,” Marie said to him.

Oliver watched as the man’s eyes scanned his body, “Welcome,” he said, “I can see you’re going to be a great asset to this department,” his eyes dropping down to Oliver’s chest area.

“I am happy to be here,” Oliver lied.

“Marie, show her around, get her a security badge and then settle her down at your desk.” 

Marie nodded and Oliver was very happy when he exited that office. He was introduced to his co-workers, who all seemed to be in awe of him. He finally reached the last cubicle which had Felicity seated behind her desk actively typing away. The flowers he had sent her were prominently displayed on her desk and it looked like she had been taking good care of them.

“Nice flowers,” He commented to her. 

“Thanks, they are pretty aren’t they?” Felicity said with a fond smile which confused Oliver because he thought for sure she hated them.

“Yes, you must have done something really nice for your boyfriend,” Oliver prodded.

“They are a thank you gift for computer work done.” She said seriously making sure to emphasise that it was work related. “It’s the first time anyone has ever actually thanked me for helping them with a computer problem.”

Ah, he understood now. She appreciated that he wanted to say thank you, she just didn’t approve of the way he said thank you.

“I’ve kind of grown accustomed to the flowers now.” She confessed to him. “I think every week I’ll buy some fresh flowers. This office could do with a little more colour.” She then dropped her voice, “Don’t tell anyone around here but that’s a real crystal vase,”

Oliver laughed a deep throaty laugh that made everyone stare at him. He promptly snapped his mouth shut. 

“Sorry,”

“Anyway, I need to show you what you’ll be doing while I’m gone.” Marie said and he followed her back to what was now his desk.

His role would be to take calls and transfer the requests to the technical staff. She advised him which staff to send which type of requests to. Anything very technical or requiring an immediate solution was to be sent to Felicity as she was the best IT person in the department. He also had to make sure the stationary supplies were sufficient for the department and manage Mr. Russell’s appointments. It sounded simple enough to Oliver.

-*-

It was lunch time and Oliver sat uncomfortably at a table in the cafeteria with his new ‘friends’. There were several men leering at him and it was freaking him out. He was accustomed to men looking at him with jealousy and envy, but these looks, he definitely wasn’t accustomed to these. He knew exactly what those men wanted and exactly what they wanted to do to him and it made his blood crawl. The women were even freakier. Some were very catty and dismissive, not at all like the seductive, love sick looks he was accustomed to. Before he could charm a woman to do anything for him, but now he was the new girl who was freakishly tall. He made a mental note to wear flats for the rest of the week.

Marie was at his table along with three other secretaries, Melanie Blackwell who he had met when he was in the HR department, Carol Higgins, the Secretary for the Marketing department and Judy Dowell, the Secretary for the security department, these were her friends here, her inner circle as she called it and now he was a part of the circle. 

It was actually the first time he had been to the cafeteria. Usually he went out to Table Salt or lunch was provided during meetings. It was larger than he thought it was and had quite an assortment of food being offered. It was easier to find something to eat than he thought it would have been. He had chosen a bacon cheese burger which had the other women eyeing him distastefully as they had chosen salads to keep their figure intact. 

The cafeteria was also very crowded but he easily spotted Felicity as she joined the back of the line to the grill. At least he wasn’t the only ‘girl’ in the cafeteria that would not be eating a salad. He found himself very easily drawn to her and noticed every time she walked passed his desk. He also couldn’t help but admire her skirt.

“She was the first person you met?” Melanie asked noticing where he was looking.

“Yes,” Oliver squeaked reaching for a sip of his water.

“I would stay away from her. She’s an Oliver Queen has been.” Carol said maliciously.

Oliver chocked on his water.

“A what?” he managed to get out.

“An Oliver Queen has been, as in Oliver Queen has been with her. One of his many one night stands.” 

Oliver eyes flicked between the women at the table, “Really?”

“Oh yeah, he was down in your department one day with a ‘problem’, and Felicity was apparently able to ‘fix’ the ‘problem’ if you know what I mean.” Judy said making air quotations around the words problem and fix.

“I don’t see how that means she had sex with him?” Oliver commented dryly. 

“She got flowers, that’s his modus operandi for his one night stands. He sends them flowers the next day.” Carol said as if it were common knowledge.

He could have kicked himself at that moment. Why hadn’t he realised how the flowers could have been interpreted by other members of staff. Perhaps he had done as much damage to her reputation as Felicity had suggested. 

“Anyway, if you want to move up the food chain here, she’s not a good friend to have. She’s on the black list.” Marie informed him.

“The black list?” Oliver asked again. He had never heard anything about a black list.

The women nodded but didn’t expand upon the comment any further as a sudden noise of a food tray crashing to the ground drew everyone’s attention to the scene unfolding in the middle of the cafeteria between Felicity and Isabelle.

“Watch where you’re going next time!” Isabelle sneered at the blonde. He watched as Felicity flinched at the brunettes tone but then she drew herself together and apologized.

“Another reason to stay away from Felicity, Isabelle is jealous of any girl that gets Oliver Queen’s attention and she’s been giving Felicity hell since the flowers arrived.” Judy told him.

“Why?” he asked. He wasn’t aware that Isabelle knew Felicity at all.

“Because she is an Oliver Queen repeat,”

“Repeat?” he questioned rubbing his fingers together. The gossip mill in QC was far worse than he thought it was.

“He’s been with her more than once. Most of us underlings here know this. Judy’s even seen the footage in the Security department. And to make matters worse, Oliver Queen actually thinks no one in the building knows. It’s so stupid, there are security cameras on every floor, in every room, including that storage cupboard on the executive floor they are so fond of. There is always someone watching in this place.” Carol responded.

Oliver made a mental note to approach Felicity to erase all the footage of him and Isabelle, permanently. 

-*-

After lunch, there were no IT emergencies and that gave him time to write a new project proposal for his advisor. He found that he was seeing things at the company with fresh eyes. He already saw a few things he wanted to change, starting with the way new employees received orientation. He wrote his goals and objectives for the project and what he hoped to achieve from it. He also included a chapter outline. 

Oliver had never been so happy to leave QC before. He only had two things to do that afternoon, see his Professor and talk to Tommy about hiring a club manager for Verdant. It was when he exited the building that he realised that there would be no town car waiting for him. Olivia Harper was a college student on scholarship to SCU and she lived in the Glades. She did not own a car. He cringed when he realised he would have to take the bus to SCU.

He decided to present his proposal as Olivia Harper in case his advisor doubted that he could pull it off. He was standing outside his advisor’s door and hoped another student was not there with him already, as it was his official office hours when any student with a problem could come and see him. Oliver knocked twice on the door.

“Come in,” a deep voice said from the other side of the door.

“Hello Professor Maxwell, I’m here to submit my latest project proposal,” Oliver said with his feminine voice. It was a small office with a small bookshelf in one corner full of business books. His professor was seated behind a normal size desk full of folders. There were two chairs in front of his desk, his computer was on and he appeared to be working on a handout for a lecture. His Professor was a short man with a small pot belly, a bald head and wire rim glasses. Oliver had seen him with a Santa hat and beard at the Queen Consolidated Christmas Party for Orphans as he handed out presents. He was a very jovial Santa but despite that, he thought his Professor’s glare could scare anyone into submission. 

His Professor eyed him wearily. “I am sorry miss, but I don’t think you are one of the students assigned to me. If you visit the department’s secretary she has a complete list of which students are assigned to which advisers.”

Oliver smirked and held out his hand. “Olivia Harper, also known as, Oliver Queen.” he said, changing back to his normal voice at the end of the sentence. He watched the surprise and confusion flicker across his Professor’s face and he handed him his project proposal. 

“The answer to your question is in there.” Oliver said nodding to the proposal as he sat down. 

He watched nervously as Professor Maxwell flipped the first page on his proposal and started reading. He also watched the dreaded red pen leave scratches across his work. He was beginning to think that this idea wouldn’t work either as the red pen continued to furiously make its way through his proposal. When Professor Maxwell was finished, he put the proposal down and eyed Oliver over the rim of his glasses.

“Mr. Queen, the typos in this proposal are atrocious, the formatting is off, I’m fairly sure your last paragraph is in a different font and your referencing is wrong. With each proposal you submit, your errors seem to get worse and worse. I strongly suggest you review the Chicago Manual of Style, the department guidebook for writing your final project and reread your work before you submit it because this looks like you wrote it in two hours and brought it straight here.”

Oliver was flooded with disappointment but consoled himself with thoughts that he only had to be Olivia Harper for two more days. As he was getting up to leave, his Professor stopped him.

“The disguise is certainly convincing. Have you tested it out on anyone yet?” Professor Maxwell asked curiously.

“Yes sir, I started work today as the IT department’s secretary.”

“I see,” the Professor said steepling his fingers in front of him. “How did that go?”

“Well I learned that the way we do orientation for new staff has to change, far more staff than I thought are disgruntled and never send flowers as a thank you for a job well done to a junior female member of staff.” Oliver replied honestly. He also wanted to add that sleeping with Isabel, was quite possibly the worst mistake of his life but he didn’t need to tarnish his Professor’s view of him any further. 

“This proposal is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is an interesting idea, and I’m curious to see where you go with this. I think you can learn a lot from this and develop into a fine businessman. I want a weekly report just to make sure this project keeps going in the right direction and if I don’t like what I see, you will have to submit another project proposal.”

“So it’s approved?” Oliver asked hesitantly.

“I do not like to repeat myself; I expect to see you here next week Monday with your first week update and a revised, error free, proposal.”

Oliver thanked his Professor and headed home with the first genuine smile on his face for the day. Of course, the smile slid off his face when he realised that the nearest bus stop to his home was two miles from the mansion and he was wearing four inch heels.

-*-

That night, Thea spotted Tommy in the foyer talking to Raisa. She knew her brother had got home five minutes before and she spotted an opportunity to have some more fun at Oliver’s expense.

“Hi Tommy,” Thea greeted him.

“Well, if it isn’t little miss sunshine, where is your grouch of a brother, he wanted to see me, something to do with Verdant he said?” Tommy asked.

“He’s upstairs,” Thea said and then to make it more interesting she leaned forward to Tommy and whispered, “with a girl, a tall brunette.”

Tommy let out a deep belly laugh as Thea eyes twinkled and Raisa frowned at her.

“We both know your brother gave up that lifestyle, why are you trying to give me the false hope that the old Ollie has finally returned!” Tommy said to her seriously.

“Don’t believe me, go upstairs and see for yourself,” Thea goaded.

“This I got to see,” Tommy said not believing her for a minute. He said a quick goodbye to Raisa, who was still giving Thea her very disapproving look. The younger Queen ignored her.

As Tommy started up the stairs in the foyer, Thea pulled out her cell phone and started videotaping as she followed quietly behind him. This would be priceless.

Tommy burst through the door to find what appeared to be a naked Oliver with breasts. The wig was tossed on the bed, the high heels kicked off into a corner of the room and his working clothes were scattered on the floor. His mask had been carefully placed on a mannequin in his closet out of Tommy’s sight.

“Oh Dear God!” Tommy exclaimed turning around in an attempt to pretend he had not just seen what he saw. This gave Thea a great view of his face and she couldn’t control the laughter that erupted out of her.  
Oliver immediately shouted at his sister and he looked around the room to see what he could use to cover himself with.

“Thea, why are you laughing? Your brother has become, become a .....” a pale faced Tommy couldn’t complete the sentence before another thought hit him. “Is this why he gave up women because he wants to be one? Is he attracted to......... men?”

Oliver sighed in frustration and ran his hands through his hair. “It’s not what you think. Just let me get changed and I’ll meet you in the TV room downstairs and explain everything to you. And Thea, turn that bloody thing off!” 

Thea looped her arm through Tommy’s and dragged the stunned billionaire out of the room. So far she was very pleased with the outcome of her little pet project and she was certainly looking forward to more. She and Tommy would definitely be planning a little trip to QC’s IT department to visit Ms. Harper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the review. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	3. A New Friendship Forged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow

“So let me get this straight, this all started because you sent flowers to an IT chick, who didn’t appreciate it and,” 

“She appreciated it,” Oliver corrected Tommy.

Tommy frowned and looked at Thea who was seated on the love seat across from the couch he and Oliver were currently occupying in the TV room.

“I thought you said she entered Oliver’s office like a banshee and chewed him out,” the brunette billionaire asked Thea.

“She did,” the younger Queen nodded emphatically.

“She was upset because of what the flowers implied and she was very right about that. I should have thought my actions through properly, no matter how well intended they were. She was not upset with the gesture,” Oliver clarified on behalf of Felicity.

Tommy’s eyebrows scrunched together. “You know I think that’s the first time, I’ve ever heard you defend a chick,” he said before turning to Thea, “Is she hot?”

“No,” Oliver answered flatly.

“Yes,” Thea responded at the same time.

Tommy eyed his best friend carefully. He knew when Oliver was lying to him and he was definitely lying to him now. He also knew the only reason Oliver would lie about a girl was when he wanted her for himself.   
This made Tommy very curious but he knew if he pushed too hard he wouldn’t get an answer. No, the best way to draw the real Oliver out was to catch him off guard. 

“So what did you want to talk about tonight?” He asked deciding to change topic.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at Tommy, there was no way he was dropping this issue. Thea looked surprised as well, but she did not say anything.

“We need to hire a manager for the club. My current schedule isn’t going to allow me to keep up with all my responsibilities there.”

“Ok,” Tommy said. “We can put out an advert in the papers on Thursday and Friday for an Operations Manager. I think two days should be all we need to advertise for. I don’t want to be sorting through thousands of applications on the weekend.”

Oliver agreed and exited the room to fetch his laptop to develop the advert for the Operations Manager.

Tommy turned to Thea as soon as he figured Ollie was far enough away, “What are you doing tomorrow at 10:00am?”

Thea thought about her schedule, “I have one class at 8:00am and another at 2:00pm. I should be free.” 

“Great, meet me at the QC IT department,” Tommy said with a wicked smile.

“I like the way you think Mr. Merlyn,” Thea responded.

-*-

Oliver had been at work two hours and he was bored. His smitten co-workers kept coming up with all sorts of excuses to talk to him. One even asked him something about a cave and Dungeon and Dragons. He had no clue what that meant. Marie had run off to the bathroom to pee again and he was staring at the phone wishing for a phone call to at least have something to do. He heard the elevator doors ping open and he was initially thankful for the reprieve until he saw his best friend walking towards him. 

“Well hello there beautiful,” Tommy said with a brilliant smile. “If I had realised that the IT department at Queen Consolidated had such beautiful women, I would have come here sooner.”

“What. are. you. doing. here.” Oliver said through gritted teeth, all pretence of being Olivia gone.

“Oh we are just here to see Felicity,” Thea said as she appeared from behind Tommy.

He glanced between the two, immediately knowing they were up to mischief.

“She isn’t here,” Oliver lied quickly. He knew very well she was at her desk working on some new code for one of the applied science’s projects. He had handed her that assignment himself after Liam celled him into his office to give it to her. His married boss was another one of those guys looking for excuses to interact with him because Felicity had indicated that she had already received an e-mail and that he could tell Mr. Russell that she had already begun work on the project. He may have also participated in the IT betting ring about how long Felicity would stay glued to the computer coding.

Knowing her brother was lying, Thea cocked her head to the side, “Really, I’m sure she’s not too busy for Thea Queen.”

“Ms. Queen,” Marie said as she rejoined Oliver at the desk. “What a pleasant surprise. How may we be of service?”

“Now that is how you greet a person!” Tommy commented as his eyes bored into his best friend challengingly.

Oliver glared right back but it didn’t seem to affect Tommy at all. 

“We were looking for Ms. Felicity Smoak, is she around?” Thea asked nicely.

“Of course, I’ll call her right up.” Marie said picking up her phone to dial Felicity’s extension.

Oliver prayed she wouldn’t answer but when did anyone ever take an Oliver Queen prayer seriously.

“She’ll be right with you. Do you want to take a seat in our conference room?” Marie offered.

“No,” Tommy responded. “We’re fine right here.” He was definitely going to have this conversation in front of Oliver.

Oliver heard the clicking of her heels on the floor before he saw her. She was dressed in a blue shirt and a tight knee length black pencil skirt. He saw the lecherous look in Tommy’s eyes and he didn’t like it. This was precisely why he didn’t want his best friend to meet her. She did not deserve Tommy’s antics.

“Wow Ms. Smoak, you are certainly more beautiful than Oliver described.” Tommy smiled charmingly while keeping a watch for Oliver’s reaction. “Tommy Merlyn,” he said holding out his hand in introduction.

A blush rose to Felicity’s face and Oliver clenched his fist. He had never been violent towards Tommy but today was going to be a first. He would not let him manipulate Felicity.

Felicity shook his hand awkwardly, “Felicity Smoak but you already knew that Mr. Merlyn.” She said as she pushed her glasses up nervously. She glanced at Thea and acknowledged her, “Ms. Queen.”

“Please call me Thea and call him Tommy” She said as she chucked her finger at the tall brunette man.

“Uh, what can I do to help you?” the blonde asked.

“I have a little computer problem and since you fixed Ollie’s so well, I was hoping you could help me out.” Tommy said making sure to put on his best puppy face.

Oliver watched in horror as Marie’s eyes widen at the mention of Oliver Queen’s computer problem. The rumour mill was going to have a field day with Tommy Merlyn, Oliver Queen’s best friend, seeking out Felicity Smoak. 

“Is the problem another laptop?” she asked curiously.

“No, Ollie and I decided to hire an Operations Manager for the club and I told him I would take care of posting the advert but I’m being asked for an e-mail address for persons to send their applications to and I don’t want to use Oliver’s or my own personal addresses so I was thinking of setting one up for the club but I don’t know how to do that,” Tommy confessed with a little pout of his lips.

“Oh,” Felicity said as she shifted awkwardly. When had she become the go-to-IT-girl for billionaires? At this rate Bruce Wayne would be knocking on her door next week.

“Oliver and I would really appreciate it if you could swing by the club tonight and set it up for us. I want to post the ad on Thursday and I need to submit the e-mail address tomorrow. I can assure you, I will make sure you are well compensated.” Tommy said leaning in closer to Felicity and winking at her.

Felicity instinctively took a step back from him, pleasing Oliver. “I can assure you that Queen Consolidated compensates me well enough, Oliver should know that already.”

Felicity clearly wasn’t falling for Tommy’s charm routine so Thea stepped in to try to convince her. 

“The point is Felicity, my brother and Tommy are hopeless with technology and they need someone they trust to do this for them and Ollie trusts you, so by extension Tommy trusts you. How about this, you do this for them, and you can get unrestricted access to the club anytime you want,” Thea offered her.

“I’m not a big partier,” Felicity responded automatically.

“There must be something you really like?” Thea asked hopefully.

“Red wine,” Felicity offered with a shrug.

“Set up the e-mail and there’s a bottle of Lafite Rothschild 1982 in it for you.” Tommy said pouncing immediately on her fondness for red wine.

“That’s a good wine,” Felicity answered.

“Indeed it is,” Tommy replied.

“Ok, I’ll see you tonight at 7:00.” She replied before she returned to her desk.

Tommy gave Thea a triumphant smile.

“Let me show you to the elevators,” Oliver said in a sickeningly sweet voice as he stood, rounded the desk and started escorting them away.

“Tommy!” Oliver hissed as soon as he was far away from Marie. 

“What?” Tommy asked innocently.

The elevator doors opened and Judy, Melanie and Carol all exited the elevator while trying to inconspicuously check them out. Oliver’s anger rose ten-fold. He reached in and pressed the ground button on the elevator and ushered Tommy and Thea in.

“It was not a pleasure meeting you; Mr. Merlyn and Ms. Queen don’t come again.” Oliver said just as the elevator doors shut. He turned to the gossip mill and their mouths were already running a mile a minute.  
“Oh my god, that was Tommy Merlyn!” Carol exclaimed.

“I thought for sure you were joking when you said he came to see Felicity but damn, she must be good in bed for his best friend to come check her out!” Judy commented.

Oliver groaned internally and wondered how he was going to fix the mess that Tommy just created.

-*-

Thea was laughing so hard in the elevator she thought she would die of oxygen starvation. 

Tommy placed his hands on her shoulders and told her to take deep breaths until she could regain some semblance of self control. 

“I wish I could have seen his real face but did you see how white his fists got when he clenched them. I swear he was going to hit you!” 

“Who Ollie, he would never hit me!” Tommy replied confidently.

“I don’t know about that. His entire body said otherwise,” Thea warned him.

Tommy brushed it off. “I have to plan for later. You think I should ask her out for dinner to get another rise out of him?” 

Thea shook her head at him, “You are incorrigible.” 

-*-

As Felicity parked her car, she noticed Oliver was waiting for her in the parking lot. There were two cars already in the lot, a black BMW and a silver Audi, obviously, Oliver’s and Tommy’s.  
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” She said to him as she got out of her car.

“It’s an off night, so none of the bouncers are around. You never know who could be lurking around. I didn’t want anything to happen to you.” He smiled at her. He glanced in her car and saw the Big Belly take out bag. He had noted that she had coded right through the day and hadn’t even had lunch. He had planned on ordering food when she got here in case she hadn’t eaten yet.

“Where were you earlier?” she asked him curiously.

“Sorry about that. I was working on my final year project. If I had known that Tommy was going to come and pester you, I would have tried to talk him out of it. I know you’re really busy.” Oliver explained sheepishly.

“Well I’m here now and I hope my wine is,” Felicity said with hopeful look.

“Oh it’s here, straight from the cellar of Merlyn estate,” Oliver said and Felicity beamed at him.

“Well then point me to your computer!” 

Oliver smiled and guided her towards the club. He opened the door and as Felicity was entering, he gently placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the office. 

“What happened to your face?” Felicity asked Tommy as soon as she entered the office. There was a deep purple bruise forming on his cheek.

“I accidentally collided with the fist of a very jealous wanna-be boyfriend,” Tommy said, his eyes sliding to Oliver to gauge his reaction. Oliver didn’t look the least bit guilty.

“You should probably not hit on as many women as you do. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.” Felicity commented.

Behind her, Oliver nodded his head in agreement with her wisdom offered.

“Anyway, this is the computer system,” Tommy said pointing to the computer in the corner of the room.

“That’s not a computer system.” Felicity interrupted, “That’s something from the dinosaur age.” “No, no, no, no, we can’t work with that. And is that your security system!” she said pointing at the lone screen that was switching between cameras. 

Felicity shook her head and pulled a blank piece of paper from the printer. She picked up a red pen off the desk and began scribbling away. She glanced outside again and seemed to be taking an estimate of how big the club was. 

She thrust the piece of paper into Oliver’s chest when she was finished, “Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be.”She commented absently before her eyes widened and face flushed, “Not that I fantasize about your chest Oliver. I mean it is fantasy worthy but,....... I’m just going to keep my mouth shut now.”

Oliver laughed and looked down at the list. “There are a lot of items on this list.”

“Oh please, you can afford it. Get me those items and I can build you a state-of-the-art system.” She replied.

She pulled out her tablet, “Is manager@verdant.com a good e-mail address?”

“That sounds fine,” both Tommy and Oliver agreed.

“Good all done. When you get the equipment, I’ll set it up for you to see your e-mail but you can use that address for the advert.”

A thought occurred to Tommy, “hey if you can build security systems, can you break into them?”

Felicity froze at the question. She was fairly sure she should not be answering that question in front of her boss’s boss.

Seeing the panic flick across her face, Tommy clarified his question, “There’s a door to the basement we haven’t been able to open. It’s locked by a security key pad and well, we really never invested the time in finding someone to get it open.”

“So you want me to open it for you?” she asked curiously.

“If you could, that would be great.” Tommy said

“Where is it?” she asked, she liked a challenge.

Tommy lead the way to a heavy door secured by a keypad lock. 

She cocked her head to the side and looked at the pad curiously. 

“You guys got a knife? I need to get the facing off to take a look at the wiring inside?”

Oliver pulled out his pocket knife that he always carried with him and took the facing off for her.

He watched as she studied the wire intently, chewing on her bottom lip and then pulled up what looked like some schematics for the lock on her tablet. 

“Oh, I see.” She said and reached for the knife in Oliver’s hand but he pulled it back instinctively.

“I need this to rework the wiring.” Felicity stated exasperatedly. “I’ve been working with wires since I was seven Oliver, I can handle this.”

“Careful, it’s sharp,” He reminded her before he handed it to her, thoughts of her accidentally getting electrocuted flooding his mind.

She takes the knife from him and after a few minutes they heard the door open.

“There we go!” She said turning to face Oliver.

“You’re remarkable!” Oliver commented staring into her eyes.

“Well thank you for remarking that!” She said to him proudly.

Tommy felt like a third wheel. They had clearly forgotten he was standing less than two feet from them. He cleared his throat to get their attention and then indicated that he was heading down the stairs. Tommy froze halfway down and glanced behind him quickly to gauge how far Oliver was behind him. Once he realised that Oliver was still at the top and couldn’t see into the basement, he quickly retraced his steps back up the metal staircase. 

“What’s wrong Oliver?” asked him.

Tommy’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “You can’t go down there.” He finally said.

“Why?” Oliver asked.

Tommy is silent. Oliver can easily tell he’s trying to come up with an excuse when Tommy finally blurts out. “It’s flooded. Looks like a pipe must have burst down there.”

Oliver shook his head, he had already lost his temper with Tommy earlier and he really didn’t want to make a habit of that. He pushed past Tommy and walked down the stairs. As he reached halfway, it occurred to him why his best friend didn’t want him to go down there. He had been trying to spare him from the stabbing pains in his chest he was currently feeling. Each bullet wound he suffered five years ago was throbbing painfully. His mind and body was reliving the day his father die. 

The basement was filled with pictures of Robert Queen and his daily route to and from Queen Consolidated. The irony of the situation didn’t escape Oliver. This was the former steel factory that his father shut down. Derek Reston had been a Foreman at this factory and he had lost his job because of his father. Everyone at the steel mill had lost their jobs and QC had found a way to get out of paying severance and pensions. Many lost their homes. This was the place where Reston plotted to kill Robert Queen. All the evidence was here on display. The pain in his chest was getting worse and the walls of the basement seemed to be closing in on him. He couldn’t take standing in that room any more. He took the stairs two at time and disappeared through the door leaving Tommy and Felicity in the basement.

“You should go check on him.” Felicity said to Tommy as she surveyed the room. She knew they had never found any incriminating evidence for Reston at the shelters he had been reported to be living at. There was also the conspiracy theory that Reston had had help in planning the attack. Perhaps the evidence to confirm or disprove that theory was in this basement.

“I need to call the police and I doubt Oliver would feel like dealing with all of that right now. He wouldn’t have gone far. He’s probably at the bar with that nice bottle of whiskey that took me 3 months to source for the club.” Tommy told her.

Oliver was exactly where Tommy said he would be, at the bar, nursing a bottle of a very expensive whiskey. Felicity rounded the bar picked up the correct glass and then sat down next to the brooding man.

“Pour me a glass.” She said to him nudging him slightly with her elbow.

He glanced at her. “I’m not good company right now.”

She knocked her empty glass against the counter and raised her eyebrows at him. 

He sighed and poured her a glass.

“So a toast?” She said.

Oliver eyed her like she was crazy.

“A toast,” she repeated, “A toast to survivors, because that’s what you are Oliver and you will survive whatever secrets that room holds.”

She lifted the glass and downed the drink in one go. She then reached forward and squeezed his hand.

“You’ll get through this,” She reiterated.

Oliver refilled her drink and as he was pouring the whiskey she noted the faint outline of nail polish on his fingers in those hard to get spots that you tend to miss when you’re taking nail polish off in a hurry. She cocked her head to the side studying his hands. That whiskey had to be strong if she thought Oliver Queen had been wearing nail polish!

They sat in silence for a while before she heard Tommy greeting a Detective Lance and two other officers. He lead them directly to the basement and managed to keep them away from Oliver and her.   
Three glasses of whiskey later and a slight tipsy Oliver turned to a borderline drunk Felicity.

“Felicity,” he said somberly,

“Oliver!” she said flashing him the most brilliant smile.

“I sort of heard this rumour, about footage on the security cameras of me and Isabelle,” he said to her.

“Screwing,” She giggled in a sing song voice causing Oliver to flinch.

“Can you delete it?”

“Maybe,” she teased. “What kind of wine can you offer me?”

“A whole case,”

“Done!”

-*-

Tommy insisted on dropping both Oliver and Felicity home as neither was in any state to drive. Oliver owed the club a bottle of whiskey now. That specific brand was for their VIP clients only. Felicity rambled the entire trip to her apartment about how nice his car was and what it must feel like to drive such a beautifully engineered piece of machinery. She also may have made a few explicit comments about the back seat of his car being big enough for both her and Oliver to stretch out on (should they pass out of course). Tommy had never known Oliver’s face to turn that particular shade of red before. Tommy was amazed that for someone who was drunk she could still make a coherent sentence. 

When they arrived at a quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of town both boys held on to Felicity, despite her insistence that she could walk to her ground floor apartment unassisted. When they reached the door, Tommy asked for the key. 

“They’re in my purse, which I don’t have.” Felicity said looking down at her empty hand. “When did I lose my purse?” she asked herself thoughtfully as she tried to remember where she put her purse. She hated mysteries. 

Tommy slapped his forehead. “Please don’t tell me it’s at the club?” 

A light bell seemed to go off in Felicity’s head. “The bar!” she exclaimed a little too loudly which had the neighbour opposite her opening his door a few moments later.

“Felicity?” a dark man with arms the size of dumbbells asked. He surveyed the two guys with her, both about his height, one fitter than the other but he was sure he could take them both if he needed to.

“Diggle, my saviour! Can you let me in, please?” She said pointing excitedly to the door. He had a spare key to her apartment in case of emergencies and this most certainly was an emergency.

He frowned as he took in her appearance. Even though he was four feet away he could faintly smell the alcohol and he noticed how her eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything for too long. “I can let you in, but not your two friends,” he said crossing his hands across his massive chest.

“They are finished with my services for the night,” she said.

Diggle arched an eyebrow, Tommy looked horrified and Oliver had an amused smile. They waited for her to pick up on her inadvertent innuendo and start frantically trying to back track but it never came. Instead, a wide yawn arrived.

“Why don’t you crash on my couch instead? That way Layla and I can keep an eye on you.” He said as he reached forward and tried to guide her towards his apartment. Tommy let her arm go but Oliver held on.  
“How do I know you’re not some stalker that lives next door?” Oliver asked with a concerned tone.

“Felicity, am I a stalker,” Diggle asked her.

“Nope,” she said popping the p.

“Good now that that’s settled. Felicity has work tomorrow and she should really get some sleep.” Diggle stated firmly. His face clearly reinforcing the message to get lost now or I’ll pummel you. Oliver reluctantly followed Tommy back to the Audi as Felicity disappeared behind her neighbour’s door.

-*-

The next morning Felicity answered the knock at her door with a pretzel in her hand. She was already dressed in a grey dress with yellow squares on the side.

“Oliver!” she said surprised. He was dressed in a black pants and a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was also sporting a very dark pair of sunglasses.  
“Hi,” he said, “You’re a bit more cheerful than I thought you would be.”

“My hangover cure, a Bloody Mary and a pretzel, followed by copious amounts of coffee to keep me awake during the day, it always works for me,” she revealed. “What are you doing here Oliver?” she said cocking her head to the side to study him. She had to admit, he looked good in all black especially with the way he rolled his sleeves up. His forearms were very sexy.   
“I’m glad you think so,” Oliver said with a wide smirk.

“Did I just say that out loud?” Felicity asked horrified slapping her forehead with her hand which wasn’t exactly a good idea since she was teetering on the precipice of a hangover headache. She hadn’t expected the whiskey to hit her so strongly. Usually she could hold her liquor fairly well but that drink should have come with a safety warning! She could only remember bits and pieces but she’s fairly sure she embarrassed herself multiple times in front of two hot billionaires.

“I came to pick you up.” He said ignoring her question. Today was the day he had class at SCU so he didn’t have to go into QC till lunch time.

“Why?” 

“You left your car at Verdant last night. I thought the least I could do was drop you to work.” He had felt guilty that he was the reason that she had gotten drunk last night. He seemed to have a lot of things to apologise to her about.

Her mouth formed the shape of an o but then another thought hit her. “Diggle, had offered to carry me to work this morning.”

“Here,” Oliver said tossing her the keys to his black BMW.

“Seriously? You’re going to let me drive your very, very, expensive car?” Felicity said.

“It’s not that expensive.” Oliver replied.

“It is for me. Are you sure?” she asked again.

“Yes,” He said remembering how enamoured she was with Tommy’s Audi. He then leaned in closer to her and whispered in her air, “I think you’ll find the BMW is more fun than the Audi.”  
A shudder went through her as his hot breath landed on her ear but somehow she was still able to focus enough to comment that she didn’t have her license with her. Oliver again surprised her by handing her, her purse.

Just then Diggle came out of his door. “You again,” he said glaring at Oliver.

“Oliver, this is my neighbour, John Diggle” Felicity said.

“Who’s not a stalker,” Diggle reminded him gruffly. 

Felicity furrowed her brows confused. “Who said you were a stalker?”

“Your friend did,” Dig replied.

“Oliver?”She queried as she titled her head to the side.

“I said that I didn’t know if you were a stalker? I didn’t actually say you were one.” Oliver defended himself crossing his hands in front of his chest. 

Felicity bit her bottom lip as she watched the men stare off against each other. 

“Diggle,” Felicity said tentatively, “Oliver offered to let me drive his BMW.”

Diggle considered her words for a few moments before replying. “Ok, just don’t crash it. Even though he could probably afford to buy another one in cash, I don’t want you getting hurt.” He said.

Felicity beamed at him. “I’ll tell you all about it later. You wanted me to baby sit Sara tonight right?”

“Yes tonight at seven.” 

“Ok, I’ll see you then,” She said as she pulled her keys out of her purse and locked her door before heading to her ride for the morning. 

-*-

Felicity was cheerful when she exited the elevators and passed Marie who seemed very interested in her this morning. Oliver had been right, the BMW was fun to drive. 

“Where’s Olivia?” Felicity asked curiously as she noted the temp was absent on what would have only been her third day at work.

“Oh, she has class at SCU this morning. She’ll be here by lunch time.” 

Felicity remembered Oliver stating he also had class, it really was a small world. She wondered if they knew each other and made a mental note to ask Olivia what classes she was taking at SCU. 

-*-

Sunday night found Oliver seated alone with his laptop on his bed, the cursor hovering over the tutorial icon that Felicity had made for him. He found after a full week of working with her both in the IT department and the club that he missed her and he just wanted to hear her voice. He impulsively clicked on the icon but the tutorial window he expected didn’t load instead another window opened loading something else. Oliver panicked and started hitting keys to try to shut it down. Suddenly, in the middle of the screen a picture of a very sleepy Felicity appeared saying hello. It was at that moment Oliver realised how screwed he really was, because even though she was half asleep, he thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

“Uh hi,” Oliver said.

“Oliver?” Felicity questioned.

“I clicked on the tutorial thing accidentally and this window opened up,” He lied.

Comprehension seemed to dawn on her face.

“Oh I kind of had a bet going with myself if you would need to see the tutorial twice so I programmed the laptop to call me if you needed help.” She explained sheepishly.

“Mhhh,” he said through tight lips.

An awkward silence settled on them and Oliver felt the need to fill it.

“So if I need to talk to you I can just click on this button again?” Oliver asked

“Yeah, it will call my tablet and once I’m available, I’ll answer it,” She explained to him.

Oliver felt strangely comforted by this.

“How come you’re still awake so late?” She asked rubbing her eyes as if to remind him that normal people were asleep by this hour.

“I was working out, I got to keep my body in shape,” he said cockily.

“I noticed,” she shook her head, “I meant not noticed,”

Before Felicity got herself into further trouble, Oliver’s phone began to ring. 

“It’s Thea,” he said to her as he looked at the caller ID.

“I guess this is bye then,” Felicity said with a sad undertone.

“Good night,” Oliver said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The connection closed and Oliver answered his phone.

“Hello Mr. Queen,” a distinctly male voice greeted Oliver.

“Who is this?” Oliver asked as a sense of dread filling him.

“You may not remember me, your sister spilt coffee on my laptop two weeks ago, I’m Roy Harper,” the man said nervously.

“Why are you calling me on Thea’s phone?” Oliver said getting right to the point.

“Thea was attacked on campus. You need to come down to Starling General Hospital.”

“I’ll be there in 15 minutes.” Oliver said ending the call and rushing out of the mansion. Whoever hurt his baby sister was going to feel the full wrath of Oliver Queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next chapter will have a flashback explaining how the punch happened. See you next week. :)


	4. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An: I don't own Arrow

It was just passed midnight and Tommy was now officially into Monday morning, the first day of the work week but he was having trouble sleeping. Oliver just had to punch him on his favourite sleeping side. The deep purple colour of the bruise had faded and the swelling had gone down but it was still a little tender. It had been quite the chick magnet though with many women offering to play nurse with him. In his younger days, he would have milked it.

There were other reasons keeping him from his sleep as well. They had received over 1000 applications for the position at Verdant, mostly from females. They had agreed to split the list in half and each pick a top three. They would conduct the interviews on Wednesday and hire the person that night for them to start on Friday. It was easy to dismiss the women with no degrees and no experience which was basically 90% of Tommy's half. The most interesting application he had received was from Sara Lance, the younger of the Lance sisters. He was surprised she had the balls to apply considering what had happened between her, her older sister and Oliver. It had been an absolute mess that resulted in Sara leaving town. As far as he knew, she hadn't been back since but he was fairly sure he knew what bought her back now. Her resume had been impressive and she had done a fair bit of travelling and working at clubs worldwide. Sara presented a very interesting opportunity for Tommy and he made sure she was one of his top three. He wondered how Oliver would handle this; he seemed kind of volatile lately, especially in light on the punch.

-*-  
Flashback

Tommy was seated behind his desk with his feet on top of it. He had been contemplating how to play things with Felicity. He had been quite pleased with Oliver's reaction thus far and he needed to push him a bit further, if he wanted his other plans to succeed. A soft smile played at his lips as he thought of his other plans. He couldn't believe how happy he felt at the prospect of a successful conclusion but he knew he couldn't leave Oliver behind. Oliver finally seemed ready to start a relationship and he had to push him out of his comfort zone to realise that and it definitely seemed like Felicity was the right lady for the task but he had a problem. How to flirt with Felicity without ruining his other plans? Tommy swung his legs off his desk and started to pace the small office

His repertoire for picking up women was vast but he didn't think any of his charm would work on her. She had more intelligence than he was accustomed to. He already knew he was going to ask her to dinner and he expected her to brush him aside. The point was to push Oliver to open up again and Tommy was going to use Oliver's jealousy to do that. Oliver was never very good at sharing things that were important to him. 

Tommy heard the front door to Verdant bang shut and he poked his head out of the office, "Ollie is that you?" 

A stone faced Oliver started walking towards him, "What the hell was that about?"

Tommy gave him his most innocent expression.

"Don't give me that expression. You know very well we have e-mails set up for the club already. It's how we liaise with our external suppliers!" Oliver stated angrily.

"Yes but I wanted one specific for this purpose. She's quite a smart cookie that one .I think I will ask her out tonight but I'll probably have to do a formal dinner and date. She doesn't look like she puts out easy"

Tommy was so busy pretending to be deep in thought by casting his eyes to the ceiling and rubbing his chin that he didn't see Oliver's fist on a collision course with his face. A sharp pain erupted on his cheek bone and he was sent stumbling backwards to the ground. 

"Don't you dare treat her like some one night stand!" Oliver stated angrily, his nostrils flaring. He turned around and headed behind the bar and returned with some ice in a cloth.

Tommy was in a daze. His mind had literally come to an abrupt halt. Had his best friend just punched him? This certainly had not been part of his plan. He had clearly made the wrong assumptions when he started his scheming and a new plan was needed, preferably one that didn't involve any further physical altercations with Oliver.

"You hit me?" Tommy said as he grabbed the ice from Oliver angrily.

"You deserved it and it was just a tap." Oliver responded as he crossed his hands in front of his broad chest.

"This is just a tap?" Tommy said raising the ice to his rapidly swelling cheek.

Oliver shrugged, "If I really came at you, I could have broken your jaw."

Tommy glared at his best friend. 

"I'm going to wait for Felicity in the car park." Oliver said before he angrily marched off towards the car park leaving poor Tommy on the ground.

Tommy's cell phone brought him out of his memory. A quick look at the caller ID told him it was Oliver.

"Tommy," Oliver said frantically.

"What's wrong?" Tommy said jumping out of bed. He knew that tone and it demanded action immediately. He glanced around the room for his nearest clothes.

"Thea's been stabbed. She needs blood. I don't have her blood type but my mother said that you and your father have her type. Can you get down to the hospital right away?"

"I'm grabbing my keys right now and I'll call my dad as soon as I get off the phone with you."

"My mother is already on the phone with your dad." Oliver said.

Tommy jumped into his Audi and made it to the hospital in record time.

-*-

Oliver dropped the keys to his BMW on a table at the entrance way of Queen Mansion and headed up to his room. Visiting hours at the hospital had finished and he had been kicked out. The good news was that Thea was awake and she was going to make a full recovery. She had been 'studying' with Roy Harper in the library and after they finished what they were supposedly 'studying' he had seen her safely to her car. However, neither of them had looked into the car because there was a man waiting for her in the back seat. When Thea got into the car, the man tried to pull Thea into the back seat with him but somehow as the perpetrator was pulling her, she got her foot to the horn and managed to press it. The blaring horn had pulled Roy's attention back to Thea's car and he noticed that she didn't seem to be in the front seat anymore. He walked back to the car curiously and that's when he saw her struggling with someone in the back. He immediately went to assist, punching the car window in with his bare hand to try to get Thea out. The man did not take the interruption well and stabbed Thea in order to buy time to get away and he jumped out the other side of the car. Roy realised immediately that it would be quicker to take her straight to the hospital at that time of night than to wait for an ambulance. He pulled off his shirt and rolled it into a ball and told Thea to apply pressure to the wound. He kept talking to her all the way to the hospital. The staff had immediately attended to Thea when they arrived. When Oliver arrived at the hospital there was a nurse pulling glass out of Roy's hand. Roy had been so full of adrenaline he hadn't even realised that he had several cuts on this hand and an X-Ray had revealed a compound fracture as well. He would be getting a cast for a few weeks.

His mother had forced him to go to work today as Olivia and that had been awful. Liam had sent him up to the accounts department manager, Ben Harford, to deliver a document. Mr. Harford's secretary had sent him straight into the office but the manager wasn't in there. Suddenly, Mr. Harford appeared behind him and groped his butt. Oliver's initial instinct was to hit him but he tapped down on it and instead squeaked and jumped away from the man. Oliver tried to threaten him by saying he would send a letter of complaint to the Mr. Murry, the HR manager, but Mr. Harford just laughed in his face. He remembered his words exactly as he said it, "Really, who are people going to believe, a well respected manager in the company or some little girl from the Glades." He had a point. Oliver had dropped the envelope on the man's desk and marched down the 14 flights of stairs to his department.

Isabelle had also been calling the IT department for Felicity all day. She made her travel up to her floor to fix a problem that mysteriously went away as soon as Felicity arrived. She would then call back in ten minutes to make Felicity come back up. By the end of the day she had been so frustrated, she had to stay back a few hours to get her actual IT work done.

His visit with his Professor hadn't gone any better. The revised proposal was mostly error free and his professor seemed pleased that Oliver was finding things as a secretary monotonous but then he informed Oliver that his project only contained his views thus far and he had no supporting information to back up any of his assertions about the company. He needed to provide hard data for everything he mentioned. If he said staff was disgruntled, he needed some form of proof that validated that assertion. His final project just became infinitely harder and Oliver had no clue how he was going to obtain supporting evidence.  
He entered his bedroom and spotted the laptop on his bedside table. A burning need to talk to Felicity suddenly overcame him and before he knew it, his laptop was on and Felicity's face was staring back at him.

"Hi, how are you and how is Thea?" she asked him. She looked like she had been worrying about him. He knew the news of the attack on Thea had gone through the rumour mill at the company and the PR department had issued a formal statement on the attack but that would have been vague and wouldn't have given a true picture of what had occurred.

"She's fine, I was worried for a moment though. She needed a lot of blood." Oliver confessed. "I'm not her blood type. According to my mother, I'm A positive and Thea is B positive. My mother is O positive so she was able to give her blood. I don't get how this blood type thing works." Oliver said rubbing his fingers together in frustration.

"Oh, its basic biology," Felicity informed him.

"I didn't study Biology at high school, SCU or any of the other four colleges I dropped out of," Oliver answered without missing a beat.

"Really, I thought female anatomy was your favourite subject," She teased.

Oliver glared at her.

"Ok in simple terms, there are four blood groups, A, B, AB and O. So A and B are dominant over O so a person with O is a universal donor and can give blood to anyone but can only receive blood from another O type. Of course if you're Rhesus factor is negative, that complicates things but we won't go into that. A can't give to B and vice versa. However, the AB group are universal receivers and can receive blood from anyone but can only give to AB. Your dad must have been AB. Since your mom is O, his blood type determined yours. He gave you A and Thea B." Felicity explained to him.

He nodded indicating that he sort of understood her explanation.

"Tommy and his dad must be B positive then. They donated to her."

Felicity nodded.

"We need a bodyguard for her."

"Can I recommend someone?" Felicity asked not sure if she was over stepping the boundaries of their budding friendship.

"Sure,"

"You remember my neighbour, John Diggle?" she enquired.

Oliver nodded. He remembered the man well, especially the disapproving eye that Diggle cast his way whenever he was with Felicity.

"He's ex Army Special Forces. He's done three tours in Afghanistan. He was honourably discharged. He came back right before his daughter was born and he's been adjusting for the last six months. He needs a job. He would be great at it. Dig's a cool guy, who goes with the flow. I think he would be perfect for your requirements."

"Ok, I'll add his name to my mom's interview list but she has final say on the choice." Oliver stated. "Oh and before I forget, Tommy said to tell you the equipment will be in on Wednesday. We're having interviews for the club manager then so you can start setting it up while we interview."

"Ok, I'll be there." She yawned.

"Go to sleep, I'm sure you have a long week ahead of you with QC work and Verdant work."

Felicity laughed. "Kind of hard to sleep when you're still in the office."

Oliver's face hardened. "I don't care how important you think your project is. It's not worth working yourself to death."

Felicity vehemently objected.

"Don't make me drive down there and take you home myself," Oliver threatened.

"Alright, I'm going, I'm going." She conceded knowing full well he was seconds away from grabbing the keys to his car to come and get her.

"Send me a text when you get home,"

"Ok, father!" Felicity replied sarcastically.

Oliver did not close his eyes until he received her text.

-*-

Wednesday came very quickly. Tommy's top 3 were up first followed by Oliver's. Sara Lance was the last person on Tommy's list and a cause of discomfort for Oliver. He had done his best to put his past behind him and Sara was a blatant reminder of how badly he had screwed hers and Laurel's lives. A reminder of the person he was, a person he was ashamed of.

"Hello Ollie and Tommy," Sara said shaking each man's hand firmly and sitting in the interview chair.

"It's been a long time," Oliver said clearly struggling with the moment.

"I would prefer if the past could stay out of this interview. This is about Verdant and I'm fairly sure I can do this job as my extensive resume and recommendations have proved." Sara said confidently.

"A part of this job is working with both Tommy and I," Oliver pointed out. "Can you do that?"

"I can," Sara replied in an even tone.

"This is a simple interview, it consists of one question. We'll give you five minutes to think carefully and then you can give us your answer." Tommy explained.

Sara nodded.

"Oliver and I are looking to expand Verdant, how would you go about doing that?"

Sara laughed, "That's easy, I did my research before coming to the interview. Verdant currently operates only on a Friday and Saturday, I assume that has to do with your schedules at QC and Merlyn Global. I also assumed that you wanted a full time manager because you were looking to expand so I conducted a little bit of market research. There is no real demand for a club to be open on Monday – Wednesday nights. Thursday could support a crowd to at least break even. The real money maker would be in renting out the club on those days to corporate and social events. To build the club's reputation as a good spot for these types of events, offer the club free of charge to charity events. As you know, all of the city's major players attend charity events, and that would be your opportunity to showcase that Verdant is a club at night but also a sophisticated and elegant location to host other types of events."

The lights in club suddenly went out.

"Did you forget to pay the electric bill?" Sara asked

"Sorry, my fault," Felicity said emerging from the office using her phone as a flashlight. "I assume the breakers are in the back somewhere?" She asked.

"I'll get it," Oliver said taking her phone from her and disappearing into one of the store rooms.

The lights came back on and Tommy called Felicity over.

"Everything ok back there?" He asked glancing through the open office door; the fire alarms weren't going off so he assumed that was a good sign.

"Yeah I'm fine, just accidentally let two wires that weren't supposed to touch, touch." She explained.

"Just be careful," He said, the last thing he needed was Ollie laying into him again if Felicity got hurt.

Felicity glanced at the petite blond that they were interviewing.

"Hi, I'm Sara Lance, Verdant Night Club Manager," Sara said boldly as Oliver returned and handed the phone back to Felicity.

Confusion flickered across Felicity's face. "I thought you guys weren't going to decide until you interviewed all of the candidates?" Felicity asked both billionaires.

"They haven't yet but I'm the best person for the job, so they'll hire me," Sara insisted.

"In that case, I'm sorry the power went out in your club Ms. Lance. It's not like I did it purposely to make out with Oliver, not that I wouldn't want to make out with Oliver, I mean he is exceedingly handsome and a girl would have to be blind not to want to ... why hasn't anyone stopped me yet!" Felicity said causing Sara and Tommy to laugh and Oliver to smirk.

"You're cute," Sara responded, "Can I keep her?" she asked looking over at Oliver and Tommy.

"No!" both men chorused.

"Pity, I'm sure we could have had a lot of fun," Sara said to Felicity.

Oliver cleared his throat.

"Ok, ok, I get the hint, leave you guys alone and get back to work." Felicity said turning around and heading back to the office.

"Before you go Sara, why did you decide now was a good time to come back?" Oliver asked curiously.

Sara glanced at Tommy with a confused stare before answering Oliver, "My dad actually, they recently diagnosed him with coronary artery disease. He needs heart surgery. He's got three arteries blocked. My family needed me so I came back."

Oliver understood the feeling of having your father go through heart surgery. His own father had survived a quadruple bypass, which had been six months before his death. Robert Queen had been put on a strict diet before the surgery as he had to lose weight to improve his chances of survival. They had also asked family members and friends to donate blood to prepare for any worse case scenarios. Thea had been too young to donate blood at the time but he remembered Tommy and Malcolm couldn't donate because they weren't his father's type. The room seemed to start closing in on him and Felicity's explanation about blood types flowed through his head.

"Excuse me a minute," He said rising and heading to the office.

"Felicity, would Tommy and Malcolm been able to donate blood to my father?" he asked her earnestly.

"If he were AB positive, yeah." She answered as she fiddled with two wires that were being connected to the back of a server.

"And what if I could donate blood to him but they couldn't?" Oliver pressed.

Felicity frowned and turned around to face him, "That would mean that your father was A positive but the implications of that would mean..." Felicity paused not knowing if to voice that thought out loud.

"Before my father died, he needed heart surgery; Tommy and Malcolm were ruled out because they had the wrong blood type, what does this mean?" Oliver asked as he walked over to sit besides her.

Felicity took his hands in hers and looked him square in his beautiful blue eyes. "If the information you have provided me with is accurate, then you and Thea do not share the same father."

Oliver pulled away from her and started to pace the room frantically while Felicity watched the pain etch across his face, "I have to get out of here."

Oliver stormed towards the exit calling out to Tommy over his shoulder that he was fine with whoever he picked, something urgent had come up and he needed to see his mother right away.

-*-

It was close to lunch time the next day when Felicity entered the CEO's office. She had timed her entrance for when his secretary would be absent. That woman was like a pitbull with a bone. She guarded the entrance to Walter's office as if it were holy ground. She would take her lunch break half an hour before the rest of staff so that there would be no queue in the cafeteria and she could collect her lunch and return to eat at her desk. Depending on the elevator, it could take between 10 to 15 minutes.

"I need to speak to you Mr. Steele," Felicity said walking quickly to his desk. She didn't want their conversation interrupted.

Walter frowned, "Does this concern our side project?"

"No, something else, I uh, recently came upon some information last night with Oliver at the club. It's going to cause him severe emotional turmoil and I'm rather concerned that with all the pressure of QC, SCU, Thea's attack, that room under Verdant and now this, that it might be a bit too much for him."

Walter nodded. "You're referring to Thea having a different father."

"You knew?" she asked surprised.

"I found out last night, when Oliver confronted his mother with his newly acquired knowledge." The fight was ingrained in his memory; Oliver had barged into their bedroom and demanded that his mother explain why he and Thea had different blood types.

"So it is true."

"I suspect you knew that already Ms. Smoak. Oliver's sudden in depth knowledge of blood groups didn't come out of thin air. I will keep a close eye on my step son but you do not need to worry about him, Moira is doing more than enough worrying for everyone in the family right at the moment. She will find a way to fix this and regardless of the outcome, I will support my family. Right now I want you to focus on our side project, things seem to be picking up pace with it."

"Yes, something certainly seems to have spurred them into moving faster," Felicity agreed.

"I'm concerned about our meetings. Perhaps it's time we discuss this project at the Mansion. "

"I can't just come to the mansion to talk to you." Felicity pointed out.

"No you can't, which is why your work with Verdant's security system is the perfect cover. Every morning since Thea's attack, we've found reporters hiding behind the rose bushes trying to get pictures of the family. It's shown us that there are some serious flaws in our security system and I would like it upgraded. That will be your excuse to be at the mansion. I want you to design the new system. I'll have a company do the actual installation since that would be too much work for you."

Felicity agreed and was about to leave when Walter called out to her.

"Oh and Ms. Smoak, it has also come to my attention that Ms. Rochev has been unnecessarily abusive towards you."

Felicity opened her mouth to explain but Walter cut her off.

"Don't worry; she'll be away at our subsidiary in Russia for the next 3 months for a rather extensive internal audit of our practices and procedures there."

Felicity smiled and thanked Walter. She glanced at the clock and knew she needed to exit quickly. As the elevator opened up, Walter's secretary looked at her suspiciously.

"He had a computer problem," Felicity said as she shrugged and hustled into the elevator as the Secretary exited.

-*-

That afternoon Oliver was in the ladies room. His suit had a few buttons in the front that allowed him to easily relieve himself. This was the worst part of being undercover, using the ladies room. He felt like it was the ultimate invasive act. He was in a stall when he heard the door slam open and two girls enter. One was clearly crying and the other seemed to be trying to calm her down.

"I can't believe he did that. He just sent us there to deliver a document for him and he started touching me." The crying voice said to the other.

"It's ok, they won't go too far with you since you're new," The calm one replied.

"He asked me to unbutton my blouse!"

"If you don't, you'll be black listed and you know nobody lasts long on that list."

"That nerd in his department has been on the list for like six months."

"She's different. She's smart and she's somehow found a way to stay ahead of them. It's almost as if someone on top of the company is looking out for her. Besides she doesn't have a family like you do. You can't afford to lose this job, you have your children to take care of."

"Don't you think I know that but I don't want to end up pregnant like Marie."

"That was a mistake from what I overheard one of the Managers saying. Forget about Marie, just focus on the here and now and your kids. This is your first transgression so they will forgive it. Let's head back upstairs and get back to work."

The door to the bathroom banged shut and Oliver emerged from the stall. He wasn't quite sure what he overheard but based on his experience on Monday and what they were saying it sounded like there was a sex ring in the office. He was stunned. Never in a million years would he have thought that sort of thing happened at his company. That poor girl had sounded terrified.

As he approached his desk he realised that Felicity was waiting for him at his desk with a few folders in her hands.

"Hi Olivia, can you file these for me please?"

"Sure," He responded. He found it easier to pull off a feminine voice if he stuck to one word responses.

They stared at each other for a few moments before Felicity frowned.

"Those are green coloured contacts aren't they?

Oliver fidgeted; she seemed to be the only one that ever noticed something off about him. First the remnants of the nail polish on his fingers at the club and now his contacts.

"Well I guess no matter how gorgeous we are, we always think there's something wrong with us. I think my butt is too big sometimes." Felicity commented before leaving.

Oliver watched her walk away and he decided that he very much liked her butt.

-*-

It was Sara's first night as club manager and she had invited her parents and her sister to come to the club. She had been thrilled when Tommy called her an hour after her interview to tell her that she had been hired. She had been nervous as hell for the interview but in the years that she had been away she had learnt how to project a confident appearance and not let people know how she was really feeling. Sara was not sure what things would have been like when she returned to Starling City but she certainly hadn't expected things to go so well. Her parents, even though they were separated now, were happy to have her home and after a rough couple of weeks with Laurel, their relationship seemed to have improved dramatically. It felt like they were actually sisters, the way sisters were supposed to be. She hadn't expected to find a job that she would like either for at least six months. After all, the job market was not that great but she had found a job she knew she would enjoy immensely. Her dad had not been too thrilled though. He still wondered what happened to his little girl that wanted to be a doctor but that little girl had been a total rebel and slept with her older sister's boyfriend. She was not doctor material. She had learnt life's lessons the hard way and she wasn't eager to repeat any of her past mistakes.

She came in to work at the requested time and signed a one year contract with a three month probation. Tommy then showed her around, including the basement they had yet to decide about. Sara immediately had a few ideas for using the basement as a special VIP lounge but Tommy told her to wait a few more days before they broach the subject with Oliver as he was more broody than usual lately. When the staff arrived she was introduced to them and before she realised it, the club was in full swing.

Oliver decided to spend his night in the office with Felicity as she tested out the security system. She had set up multiple screens to view the cameras so you had a better real time picture of what was going on in the club instead of one screen cycling through a host of cameras. It was quite interesting to watch the people in the club from a neutral distance. Human social interaction could be quite fascinating. A conversation between Laurel and Tommy had caught his eye and he was quite intrigued as Tommy had never mentioned to him that he spoke with her at all but from their interaction they seemed very comfortable with each other.

Felicity glanced at Oliver and noticed a smile on his face she had never seen before. It was soft and tender. She looked at the screen he was watching and saw Laurel Lance, his ex. Sara had introduced them earlier in the evening and Tommy had let it slip that Oliver used to date both Laurel and Sara at the same time. At first she assumed that he was interested in Laurel again but then she noticed that Tommy was talking with her. Their whole interaction screamed that they were a couple but she was not aware that they were dating. She's fairly sure someone would have mentioned that to her by now, especially since they just hired Sara to be the club manager. A fight broke out on one of the other monitors and she immediately drew Oliver's attention to it. He radioed to a bouncer and headed out into the club to smooth over the situation between the disgruntled parties. She noticed on the camera that Sara had arrived quickly to the scene and seemed to have the situation under control quickly.

A little while later, Tommy came into the office and Felicity smiled broadly at him. It was his turn to be put in the hot seat.

"So how long have you had that thing with Laurel going on?" Felicity asked Tommy.

"What thing?" Tommy asked pretending he knew nothing.

Felicity gave him the 'do I look stupid look' and he sighed in resignation.

"It's complicated, just don't mention anything to Oliver," Tommy begged with puppy dog eyes.

"Oh I am pretty sure he already knows." Felicity said causing Tommy to panic. Sensing his discomfort she further added, "I don't think it's going to be an issue."

"You sure?" Tommy asked. He was very apprehensive about this, after all, he was one of the few people that knew the whole history between Oliver and Laurel.

"Absolutely," she said confidently.

"You know besides, me or Thea, you're the first person I've met that reads him so well," Tommy commented to her.

"It's actually not hard; once you don't believe that he is still a billionaire playboy,"

"Why don't you?" he asked curiously.

"Because I fixed his computer; the files you store say something about you and he's very focused on QC but more importantly he wants to do what is right. That's the sign of a good person."

"What else does he have on there?" Tommy asked remembering Oliver was supposed to have a rather compromising picture of Tommy that had been used for black mail a few times.

"I keep his secrets," Felicity said with a large smile.

Oliver entered the office, "Tommy we need to talk." He glanced at Felicity and they shared eye contact for a few moments. She seemed to understand him perfectly and headed to the door but before she stepped through she asked cheekily, "Got anymore of that great whiskey?"

"No!" both men said to her before she closed the door.

An uncomfortable tension settled in the room before Tommy decided to go first.

"Look Oliver, about Laurel, I know this is awkward but I didn't mean for this to happen. CNRI had a client that used my mother's clinic in the Glades and in helping Laurel with her case, we sort of grew close. We haven't started a relationship or anything but I think that I would like to but only if you're ok with it. I know I shouldn't really be dating the only woman you ever had a real relationship with and I know that a part of you was kind of holding out hope that you and Laurel could become something again but I can't help what I feel for her. There's this spark and it's very overwhelming. I can't fight it." Tommy confessed.

Oliver raised his hand and Tommy flinched thinking Oliver was going to punch him again. This caused Oliver to chuckle as he rested his hand on Tommy's shoulder, "I approve. Go ahead and ask her out."

"You do, just like that?" Tommy asked. He had expected things to be different. Perhaps his pushing of Felicity into Oliver's life had softened the blow of him and Laurel.

"I have no arguments against it. If she makes you happy go for it. It's about time you stopped playing the field."

"So why did you look so grave when you asked me to talk." Tommy asked.

The grave look reappeared on Oliver's face.

"You remember how you always teased that Thea could be your sister instead of mine?"

"I remember," Tommy responded fondly, his eyes glazed over as he thought of a young Thea that he and Oliver had taught how to ride a bike.

"She is our half sister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


	5. Security Precautions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow.
> 
> I'm very sorry for the delay. Thanks for the reviews and kudos. This chapter explores Thea’s plot line a little bit more.

Ch 5 – Security Precautions

S-1

Monday morning dawned bright and early and Thea was ready to get back to school. She had missed one week and even though she was still very sore, being cooped up in the hospital and then the mansion was driving her crazy. On Friday, she had been introduced to John Diggle, her new bodyguard that would accompany her everywhere she needed to go. Before her attack she would have hated to have someone following her around like a puppy but now she felt comforted knowing that there was someone that would be physically there, if she got into any difficulties.

She was hoping that things would go back to normal soon but at family lunch on Sunday, Malcolm and Tommy Merlyn had been included. She knew something was up the minute she saw Tommy's father. Malcolm Merlyn had not been to the mansion since her father passed away. The bombshell had been dropped after lunch in ironically, what she thought was her father's study. It turned out her father, wasn't her father, though Oliver told her Robert was still her father because he had raised her. She had locked herself in her room for the rest of the night. Both her brother and Tommy, who was now also her other brother, tried to get her to come out but she refused to budge.

She was hoping that getting back into the school routine and focusing on classes would give her something else to think about other than her attack and her mother's betrayal. Oliver, dressed as Olivia, was waiting for her in the kitchen with Raisa. She looked at her brother, "Aren't you going to be late for work," she said to him sourly.

"They aren't going to fire me for one late morning. I wanted to make sure you were ok. Are you sure you want to go to school today?" Oliver asked her. He had already finished his breakfast and he knew Thea was going to come straight to the kitchen instead of eating at the dining table with their mother and Walter.

"Yes, I need to get out of this house. I need something to do, I don't want to sit here and feel so useless," Thea said as Raisa placed a plate of eggs, toast and bacon in front of her.

"Speedy," Oliver started his voice laced with sympathy.

"Don't," Thea begged. "I have a baby sitter. It will be fine. I will be fine. Go to work, you have plenty on your plate. I'll see you tonight."

Oliver gave his sister a hesitant look before he caved to her wishes and kissed her on her forehead before he headed to the garage where his driver was waiting to drop him the customary two blocks away from Queen Consolidated.

Thea finished her breakfast quickly as she didn't want to face her mother or Walter and she was pleasantly surprised to find that Diggle was already waiting for her at the entrance with the town car.

S-2

It was Oliver's third week working at QC as a secretary in the IT department. He had gotten to know all of the staff in his department as well as most of the staff that would visit Liam. After the bathroom encounter, he finally understood why Liam had so many female staff members visiting him. He needed to decide how he was going to approach that problem. He certainly wasn't allowing them to continue but he needed evidence to throw them out of the company. Thinking of evidence, he also had to visit his Professor again and he had yet to come up with a way to gather supporting documentation for his project. His temples were beginning to throb; Thea was right, he did have a lot on his plate. At least Sara seemed to have stepped straight into the role of Club Manager as if she had been doing it all her life.

His mother had been impressed with Mr. Diggle's record and she had hired him. Oliver had been secretly pleased because he knew Felicity would be happy with this development. He trusted Felicity's opinion of Diggle and if she told him his sister was in good hands, he believed her, though he would still be doing the mandatory big brother checkups.

The elevator doors pinged opened and Oliver groaned internally when he saw Tommy emerge and approach him with a large smile.

"Why, if it isn't the lovely Miss Harper!" Tommy exclaimed.

"What is that you want Mr. Merlyn?" Oliver asked in a clipped tone.

"Can't a guy come to visit a beautiful girl without a reason?" Tommy said wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at him.

Oliver suddenly felt sorry for every woman that ever had to put up with the two of them.

"Mr. Merlyn," A voice Oliver recognised as Liam's called from behind him. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

"I came to talk to my two favourite blonds and hopefully convince them to have lunch with me," Tommy replied absently.

"And who would that be?" Liam asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Felicity and Oliver," Tommy said automatically before he glanced at the wig Oliver was wearing, the very black wig that Oliver was wearing and he realised he may have screwed up. "I thought I would stop on this floor first on my way upstairs. Oliver's supposed to be with his step father," Tommy said hoping he covered his little mistake.

"Felicity is downstairs in the server room," Liam informed Tommy coldly.

"Oh no problem, I can go get her." Tommy said turning around swiftly hoping to get away before Oliver could reprimand him for his slip up.

"Mr. Merlyn, I can't let the son of one of our competitors into the server room. I'll send Olivia to get her. Why don't you go upstairs and Felicity will join you."

"Or ,"Tommy proposed, "I can accompany the sexy Ms. Harper downstairs."

Before Liam could comment Oliver stood and rounded the desk causing Tommy to turn away from the desk.

"I'll just show Mr. Merlyn to the elevators and fetch Felicity for him," Oliver said to his boss.

As Oliver walked passed Tommy, he yelped in pain.

"I'm sorry was that your foot I stepped on?" Oliver asked in a fake horrified voice while his eyes glared daggers at Tommy.

"That hurt," Tommy pouted as he limped after his best friend.

Good was all Oliver could think. At last he found a purpose for high heels!

Tommy followed Oliver slowly while Liam watched on with clear anger on his face. The door opened and they both stepped into the empty elevator. As soon as the door closed, Oliver rounded on Tommy.

"What the hell was that," Oliver hissed with his back to the camera. Ever since he had been told about being caught on the security footage with Isabelle, he had taken note of where every camera in QC was located.

Tommy shrugged. "I needed to talk about Thea but why was that guy giving me a look that said I was not allowed to be talking to you?"

Oliver sighed and ran his hands through his hair as the doors opened, "That's a long story we cannot discuss here."

Oliver and Tommy stepped out into the cold room full with server racks.

"I think she's at the work station in the back but Tommy, she doesn't know it's me either so try not to mess up. She already suspects something."

As they walked through a row of mainframes, Felicity's voice drifted down to them.

"I don't know why he's here. You can't dock my pay check for having visitors. I'm not doing work for Merlyn Global while I work for QC and I am NOT sharing QC confidential information!" Felicity argued into the phone.

Tommy frowned and looked at Oliver, "What is it with that jerk?" They both knew she had to be talking to Liam.

Felicity slammed the phone down and emerged from the small room into their corridor.

"Hi Tommy!" Felicity greeted all traces of anger in her voice gone, "What is it that you need?" She glanced nervously at Olivia.

"I was hoping to steal you away for lunch but if you're busy, I can reschedule to another day when both you and Oliver are available." Tommy said.

"You know you could have called Merlyn." Felicity said crossing her arms in front of her chest. Tommy did his best to keep his eyes focused on her face and no other part of her body. Oliver was displaying some rather violent tendencies these days.

"I take note of that for next time," Tommy said with a large smile.

"Olivia why don't you head back upstairs, I'm sure Mr. Russell is anxiously waiting for your return. I can show Mr. Merlyn out." Felicity told him in a pleasant voice but Oliver realised she didn't trust him as Olivia. She had a different tone when she was talking to him or Tommy.

Oliver hesitated. He wanted to be a part of the conversation but he couldn't stay without putting his identity at risk, so he followed her advice. As he headed back to the elevator he glanced over his shoulder and caught site of Tommy disappearing into the little cubicle with her. He had the strong urge to march back down there but he tapped down on it. He knew if there was anybody that he could trust Felicity with, it was Tommy and he knew Tommy was just as upset about his father's affair as Oliver was. Felicity had supported Oliver and he knew she was more than capable of offering friendly advice to Tommy but it still bothered him that she was in a cubicle alone with a man that wasn't him.

S-3

Walter arrived home and headed straight to the study where his wife's urgent text message said to meet her. She had pulled him out of a very important meeting with Kord Industries and he knew it had to be very important for her to do that.

"Moira, what is wrong?" Walter asked coming into the room to find her and Detective Lance waiting patiently for him.

"Detective, how nice to see you again," He greeted him pleasantly with a firm handshake.

"It's always a pleasure Mr. Steele, I just wish it could be under different circumstances." Detective Lance responded.

"Does this have to do with Thea," Walter asked cautiously.

"No, we haven't made any progress on that case yet. This has to do with Robert Queen's murder," Lance told him solemnly.

"Walter dear, I think you should sit down for this." Moira commented.

Walter was a good husband and always followed his wife's instructions so he sat down on the sofa and his wife took the seat next to him, her hand automatically slipping into his. Detective Lance sat across from him, the coffee table in the middle separating them.

"We have finished the initial forensic investigation into the basement at Verdant. Mr. Reston appeared to have started his plans three months before the attack. He had initially planned to kill Mr. and Mrs. Queen at the Charity Gala that had been held five days before the actual attack but that was the first gala they had missed since its inception."

"Robert had eaten something spicy earlier in the day and it didn't mix well with his heart medications. We were forced to cancel our attendance," Moira said to remind Walter why she and Robert had missed the event. Lance nodded and mentally filed away the information about spicy food and heart medication.

"Detective Lance, you said Mr. And Mrs., is Moira in danger?" Walter asked with a worried tone.

"There have been no attacks on Mrs. Queen since the attack on her husband and son so at this point I don't believe she is in any immediate danger."

" What about the attack on Thea?" Walter prodded.

"That appears to be unrelated at the moment," Lance responded.

"So what is it that we need to be concerned about?" Walter asked.

"Reston had Mr. Queen's schedule for an entire three month period. He had very detailed information about each meeting Mr. Queen would be attending. He knew dates, places, persons and the purpose of the meetings. This was not information that Mr. Reston would have been capable of sourcing by himself. The plans we discovered were also very meticulous, far beyond what a Foreman of steel factory should be capable of.

"So you're saying he had help from someone inside Queen Consolidated?" Walter asked.

"He had a lot of help. The entrance to the Verdant basement was secured via a security lock system. The system alone was worth six months of his salary."

"But if someone in QC were helping him, why didn't they clean out the basement?" Walter queried.

"Whoever it was inside your company thought they had control over that location, that is until the billionaire brats decided to turn it into a club. They probably weren't able to go in and clear it out without attracting attention then," Detective Lance proposed.

Moira frowned at the detective's description of her son and Tommy. She remembered the history his daughters had with Oliver but there was no need to bring those sour grapes into this matter.

Walter stood abruptly and offered the Detective his hand. "It was nice meeting with you Detective. Please keep us informed if anything else comes up."

Detective Lance knew he was being dismissed and he shook Walter's hand and left. Walter turned to Moira and dropped a kiss to her forehead. "Don't worry. Everything will work out but I need to get back to work." He exited the room and left Moira alone with her thoughts. When he reached his car, he pulled out his phone and called a familiar number.

"We need to meet this weekend, it's possible that the people we have been investigating had Robert killed."

S-4

It was now Wednesday and Thea was sitting in her Spanish class, the last class of her day, staring out the window as the teacher conjugated the verb vivir when a paper airplane landed on her desk. She looked around to see who had sent it her way but everyone's attention was glued to the board. She was about to throw it away when some writing on it caught her attention. She opened the page and written in heavy black ink across the entire page were the words:

You aren't the only victim.

Victim, she hated that word and the way it made her feel. Memories of the attack started to flow through her mind. She could hear the man's rasp telling her to get in the back seat or he would hurt her. She could feel his rough hands on her, pulling her backwards into the back seat. It was getting harder to breathe as panic started to constrict her chest. Oliver had told her to shut her eyes and concentrate on her breathing. Breath in slowly, count to five and breath out slowly, he had said. She followed his advice and the panic started to ease but she needed to get out of that classroom. She was about to turn around to signal to Diggle, who was seated at the back of the classroom, that she was ready to go but she found him already at her side.

Without a word he closed her notebook and textbook and put everything away in her bag, before slinging it over his shoulder and walking out of the classroom with her. Diggle threw a warning look at the teacher not to say anything. Once they were outside the building Thea took a deep breath.

"What did the note say?" Diggle asked

She gave him a surprised look.

"I'm you bodyguard, do you really think I would miss a paper airplane landing on your desk?"

Thea pursed her lips, "Do you know who sent it?" she asked.

"The red head three seats across from you." He told her easily.

"I need to talk to her," Thea glanced at her watch. There was fifteen more minutes to class. "Let's wait for class to finish. The weather seems quite nice today."

A flock of students emerged from the building a little later and Thea followed the red head girl across campus to the cafeteria. She sat and ate with a few friends before she excused herself to use the bathroom. Thea chose this moment to talk to her and she cornered her just outside the bathroom.

"Why did you send me that note?" Thea asked.

"I don't want any trouble. I remembered what it was like to think that you were alone but you're not. There are others here," The red head said.

"Others what are you talking about?" the young Queen asked.

"He marked us with his knife. It's how we found each other. He leaves a mark on your inner thigh when he's done with you. I suppose yours is on your side since you fought back successfully," she said.

"Am I understanding you correctly, are you telling me there is a serial rapist on campus? Why hasn't this been announced, why hasn't anyone come forward?"

"I don't want any trouble," the girl said pushing passed Thea and heading for the exit instead of the bathroom.

Thea stood there stunned. Could the attack on her have been prevented if someone said something earlier? Surely this couldn't be allowed to continue. How many were there?

"Thea, perhaps you should take the rest of the afternoon off? I believe Tommy wanted to have dinner with you this evening." Diggle said.

"How do you always manage to be there without me knowing you're there?" Thea asked.

"It's in the job description," He said with a smile.

"Ok, we'll go home and then we'll do dinner with Tommy," Thea said. She had a lot to think about and she wouldn't be able to sort anything out at school.

S-5

It was one of those rare nights that Felicity was home early and she decided to visit Diggle and see how he liked his new job. Layla answered the door with Sara in her arms and Felicity immediately reached to play with the adorable little girl as she entered the apartment.

"So what's it like babysitting a spoiled billionaire brat?" she asked Diggle quoting the words he had used to describe the job when she first told him she put in an application for him to be Thea Queen's bodyguard.

"Actually, it's quite interesting," He responded.

"So after four days with the Queens, would it be accurate to say you love your new job?" Felicity teased.

"Love is such a strong word Felicity, do you even know what love is?" Dig teased back.

Felicity punched him on his arm and started yelping in pain and then shaking her hand to relieve the pain. Layla laughed at her neighbour. She was quite fond of her.

"Felicity, I have a favour to ask you. I overheard a conversation yesterday while on duty that was quite disturbing."

"What is it?" the blonde asked.

"I want you to hack SCU's security reports and medical reports as well as medical reports at Starling General," he told her seriously.

"Wow that's a lot. Why am I doing this? It is illegal." Felicity pointed out.

"There might be a serial rapist on the SCU campus and someone might be covering it up. These girls need answers," Dig said handing her a folder with the search criteria he was recommending she use.

"Ok, I'll get cracking on it tonight," Felicity said. She kissed Sara good night and headed to her apartment.

S-6

Saturday morning came quickly and Oliver was anxiously waiting for Felicity by the front door. He had volunteered to show her around the mansion for her to design the new security system. He hadn't seen her this week as Oliver at all. She had finished Verdant's system and there was no reason for her to come to the club again. He had been thrilled when Walter mentioned Felicity would be doing the new design for the mansion.

As soon as she arrived he started to show her around. He managed to show her the drawing room, study and kitchen before Thea joined them. His younger sister wasted no time in dropping innuendos about their friendship. Oliver had stopped the tour four times to warn his little sister. When they came to the last room on the ground floor Thea was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"And this is the gym!" Thea proclaimed happily and opened the door ushering Felicity inside.

It was filled with state of the art machines as well as a large training mat and dummy for Oliver to practice his martial arts. Thea watched as Felicity surveyed the gym and grinned when Felicity fell for the bait.

"Uh, what's that thing?" Felicity asked pointing to the salmon ladder.

Oliver looked over at the salmon ladder and smirked. "It's best I just show you," he said as he took off his shirt.

Thea rolled her eyes, her brother was so easy. There was no way he was not going to show Felicity this part of his workout routine. "I'm out of here. Oliver can show off for his girl alone. "

A pink Felicity turned to the retreating Thea to repeat again that she was not Oliver's girl but her attention was drawn back to the loud sound of metal banging with metal.

She watched mesmerised as Oliver slowly moved the bar up the device. His back was facing her but she could see each time his muscles contracted when he pulled himself up. When he reached the top he jumped down with the bar in hand.

Felicity cocked her head to the side, "I don't think I quite understood that, care to show me again?"

Oliver smirked, "Anything for you." He started again but this time facing her so that he could see her reaction.

Felicity wondered if maybe she could somehow move her cubicle here so that she could watch him do that while she worked. Maybe she should design the new security system while Oliver worked out. Of course she was assuming she could actually get any work done.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Moira Queen.

"Oliver stop behaving like a monkey in front of Ms. Smoak." She said to him sternly.

"I don't think she minds." Oliver said causing Felicity to blush harder.

"Walter would like to see us immediately but I suggest you have a bath first." She said scrunching up her nose in disgust at her son's slightly sweaty appearance.

"Ms. Smoak, please follow me." Moira said

When Oliver came down from his quick shower he found Walter and Moira on the love seat and Thea and Felicity on the sofa. Thea moved over to make room for Oliver to sit between them.

"Now that everyone is here I can begin. When I first took over QC, I noticed some discrepancies in the accounts. I asked the Chief of Security to look into it and shortly before he could report to me he died in a car accident. I hired Ms. Smoak to look into the discrepancies very discreetly as she is capable of finding information without leaving any traces that she had been there. I recently learned this week that someone inside QC arranged for Robert to be killed. I believe the ring that Felicity and I are investigating was behind that." Walter said pausing to gauge everyone's response.

"We are all in danger."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	6. The Lovely Ms. Harper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow

Oliver stared at Walter in shock. He had come to believe that his father's death and his hospitalisation had been at the hands of a deranged man who had been unable to handle the abrupt change in his life caused by unemployment. It was an entirely different matter to be told that someone inside QC had actively plotted to kill his father and had probably used Reston as an instrument to carry out their elaborate plan. His thoughts immediately turned to the recent attack on his sister.

"Was Thea's attack part of this?" Oliver asked angrily. He was upset that Walter knew that things at the company were shady and he made no move to protect their family.

"We are not sure at the moment," Walter answered calmly.

"It wasn't," Thea informed them.

"Thea, we can't rule out the possibility that..." Moira started but Thea cut her off.

"It's not, there have been other attacks on campus that went unreported,"she revealed and then began to fidget when all the attention had been drawn to her.

Oliver sensed Felicity tense next to him at the mention of the attacks on campus and he made a mental note to try to remember to question her about it later.

"Based on the evidence that we have collected thus far, we have concluded that a few of the senior managers in the accounts, HR, IT, audit and legal departments are definitely involved." Walter stated.

"So basically the same people that run the sex ring." Oliver stated.

"Sex ring?" Everyone in the room queried.

"Oliver please tell me that does not mean what I think it means?" his mother asked him.

"Wait why don't I know about this?" Felicity asked gesturing wildly with her hands. Surely she wasn't that oblivious to things going on with her co-workers. How could she miss a sex ring? Sure a few of the managers were creepers but after the pepper spray incident they behaved themselves.

"They tend to prey on the vulnerable women in the organisation, the ones that desperately need the job. They tried you but you pepper sprayed them and now they are trying to get rid of you but can't because you do all the serious work in the IT department. Every major project gets handed to you." Oliver explained. "In fact, some days I wonder if Liam does anything other than sit on his ass and stare at my chest," Oliver said without thinking.

"How do you know all this? Are you stalking me? Why would Liam be staring at your chest? He never struck me as swinging both ways." Felicity asked shifting closer to Thea and away from Oliver.

Oliver rubbed his fingers together, he just put his foot in his mouth and all this time he thought for sure it was Tommy who was going to blow his cover.

"He's not stalking you," Thea defended her brother.

"Then how does he know all of that?"

"Because I work in the IT department," Oliver revealed.

"The last time I checked, I didn't see the name Oliver Queen listed as a member of staff of the IT department," Felicity commented dryly.

Oliver made a quick decision and stood up from the couch holding his hand out to pull her up.

"Come, I have something to show you," He said softly to her.

She watched his hand hesitantly and glanced at Walter for some reassurance, "Go on. You still have the upstairs to review. I want that security system designed as soon as possible."

Felicity grabbed his hand and let him pull her up from the sofa as if she were a feather. She followed him through the mansion up the grand staircase to his bedroom, not once did he let go of her hand.

Oliver was suddenly thankful for that piece of advice that Tommy had given him about Olivia. If he wanted Felicity to be a person in his life, do not befriend her as Olivia. He could only imagine how betrayed she might have felt if his female alter ego had been close friends with Felicity. He guided her to the edge of his bed and asked her to sit. He walked into his closet and pulled out the suit that he had worn to work on Friday and showed it to Felicity.

He watched her eyebrows draw together in confusion, "So you are the one that swings both ways, not that there's anything wrong with that Oliver. I'm sure you make a very sexy drag queen and have lots of fanboys around you. Man or woman you're sinfully attractive and I think I'm going to shut up now." She said snapping her mouth shut.

Oliver ran his hand through his short hair in frustration. Why did everyone automatically assume he was gay. "Look closely at the outfit," he encouraged her shaking it for emphasis. He really didn't want to have to pull out the mask and suit. He was always relieved when it was the weekends and he could just be himself. Being a female was too much work!

Felicity stared at the green work suit and a memory from Friday came back to her.

"That's a nice suit Olivia," She had said in the morning as she headed to her desk.

Felicity's eyes widened, "So all this time, you were Olivia. No wonder I thought there was something fishy about you! It always bugged me and I hate mysteries. So why are you dressing up as Olivia?"

Oliver easily launched into the explanation of what he had been doing, leaving no details out. He soon found himself seated next to Felicity on his bed as she read through his draft paper. As he watched her scroll to the last page, he found that he was more nervous about what she thought about it than anyone else and he anxiously waited for her opinion.

She lifted her head up and turned to stare at him with the most magnificent smile he had ever seen. "It's brilliant!" she said to him sincerely and then immediately started to suggest a few ideas for improvement and data collection.

Oliver didn't know what came over him but before he realised what he was doing, he had closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers. He could tell he had surprised her but the fact that she didn't pull away, pleased him very much. Her lips were soft against his and he was just about to deepen the kiss when a buzzing from her pants caused Felicity to break the kiss and she gave him an apologetic look.

Oliver scowled at the phone, "that had better be life or death," he stated sourly.

Felicity laughed. "It's just a notification from a programme that I wrote for you," she explained.

"For me?" He had no memory of asking her to write a program for him.

"Yes for you." Felicity said as she cutely chewed on her bottom lip trying to decide if to explain it any further to him. "Remember that night with the whiskey at Verdant."

"Yeah but I didn't think you did," Oliver replied honestly.

"I wasn't that drunk," Felicity defended herself.

Oliver raised an eyebrow at her.

"I wasn't!" she reiterated, "anyway you mentioned Isabelle and some indecent footage that might have been caught on cameras in the office so I wrote this programme to go through all the security footage from when you first started working at QC to the present. It's a facial recognition programme and it combs through the footage looking for scenes that have both you and Isabelle in it. When it finds matches it sends the information to my phone."

"So you just found a scene?" The whole sordid liaison with Isabelle was gradually becoming one of the bigger mistakes in his life.

"Yes, of course not all are those scenes, there are plenty of normal ones. This could be a normal one." Felicity explained.

"Can I see?" Oliver asked curiously.

"Sure,"

She scooted back on the bed to rest her back against his headboard and brought her knees up a bit to make it easier for her to type on the laptop. Oliver followed her, eagerly watching the screen as she logged in remotely to her computer at QC. She pulled up the scene and Oliver immediately recognised it as one of those and told her she could delete it but she didn't act right away. Instead she fast forwarded to the end of the video and wrote down the time they left each other.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asked panicked. The thought of Felicity seeing this side of him made him feel terrible.

"It's not so simple to just delete the video. If someone, say Isabelle, wanted to go through the video, there would be gaping holes in the times where stuff would obviously have been deleted. I loop the video on the camera so it looks as if no one was there during the missing time. I also go back through every camera that captured you and Isabelle on the way to and from your rendezvous and I loop those as well or add some fake footage to fill the gap. If anyone where to look, you two would have been in your respective offices the whole time. I also keep copies of the original footage in case someone else out there has a copy as well. I was going to burn it all on a DVD and give it to you."

"You are remarkable," Oliver said in awe of how magnificent Felicity really was.

"Thank you for remarking on it," she replied.

"Is this the project you were working on all last week when I tried to talk to you at nights?" Oliver asked. He had missed their nightly laptop conversations.

"One of them yes, and please stop sulking. As cute as you look, you're much sexier happy." Felicity said as she boldly leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his lips.

"Oh and just because we kiss now, doesn't mean that I don't expect the full case of wine you promised me!"

"For you, I would buy the whole vineyard," he said as he leaned in to kiss her one more time before he showed her the rest of the mansion.

S-2

Moira excused Thea shortly after Oliver left with Felicity. She waited a minute to ensure she was out of hearing distance before she rounded on Walter.

"I suppose the reason you kept all of this from me was because you thought that I was involved in it?" She asked angrily.

"Moira," Walter said calmly.

"Don't Walter. How you could even think I would be involved in this is ludicrous. Do I even know the man that I married anymore?" Moira said standing up and excusing herself from the room.

Walter let out a long sigh. His family was in for a few rough weeks and he only hoped that all of the precautions he had put in place would bring them out on top.

S-3

It was Monday morning and Felicity said hello to the usual guards as she entered the QC lobby. She scanned in and joined the line to the elevator behind two of the pillars of the QC gossip mill. Today's topic was Oliver Queen. No surprise there. He was their favourite topic. What was a surprise was that they said he had hooked up with a model at Verdant Saturday night and a blonde woman had been spotted leaving the Manor late Sunday night. A blush crept across her cheeks because she knew the blonde woman leaving the manor had been her. She needed to be more careful next time.

Her turn to enter the elevator came quickly and she was soon exiting on her floor. Olivia was already seated at her desk and it was difficult to look at her without smiling or laughing but she managed to keep her face straight and her good morning pleasant as she walked to her desk in the back. She was expecting the usual reply from Olivia but was surprised when she received a cryptic comment about her desk and a meaningful look.

Felicity immediately understood what the comment was about as soon as she came within viewing distance of her desk. The empty vase that sat there, the one that Oliver had sent his roses in, the same one that she had promised herself that she would put flowers in every week, was now full with a bunch of bright wild flowers. They were beautiful and a brilliant smile covered Felicity's face. She looked for a card but there was none but she was positive that they were from Oliver. Her phone buzzed with a message from him and her heart soared when she read it.

Have dinner with me?

Felicity quickly responded yes.

S-4

Thea took a deep breath and walked into the crowded cafeteria. She knew Diggle was behind her somewhere but the looks people kept giving her were unnerving. She had avoided the large cafeteria since her attack and had only come here that day when she had followed the red head. Even then she had waited outside and had watched through the glass waiting for an opportunity to talk to the girl. Today though, she had a purpose for coming inside. She needed to talk to Roy. She hadn't seen him since her attack. She thought he would have called or come around or even been at school last week but he hadn't been in his usual hang out places. Today however she caught a glimpse of him after one of her classes and she knew this would be the hour he would be in the cafeteria.

She held her head high and ignored the looks and the whispers as she passed people. Breathe in, breathe out, Diggle has got your back, she reminded herself. She spotted him at a seat in the corner of the room. She realised that from his position he would be able to see everyone as they entered and exited the room and he had seen her before she saw him because he was gesturing for her to take the seat across from him.

"Thea, how are you?" Roy said sincerely as she sat down.

"I'm doing ok, and you? I haven't seen you in a while," Thea commented dryly. Yes she was a tad bit upset that she had not heard from him.

She saw his jaw tighten and his fist clench before he relaxed. "Things were a little hectic last week, that's all. Has there been any word about the man that attacked you?"

Thea's face fell at the mention of the attack. "No, the police seem incapable of finding him," She said bitterly.

"I'm sure they'll get a break in the case soon," He told her while he reached out to take her hands in his.

"I don't think so. Last week I found out that other women have been attacked on campus and it sounds like the same guy," Thea said, closing her eyes as Roy tenderly rubbed circles on the back of her hands with his thumbs. A girl gesturing wildly walked behind Thea's chair and brushed her hand accidentally through Thea's hair. The action startled Thea causing her to jump from a seat and turn swiftly around. She glared at the girl's retreating back. She remembered her mantra and concentrated on her breathing.

"Do you think if one of them came forward before, that I would have avoided being attacked?" Thea asked Roy as she sat back down.

A pained expression crossed Roy's face. He didn't know how to answer that question to make Thea feel better. He was terrible at words and giving comfort and that was something that Thea desperately needed at the moment. He had heard about her buff bodyguard and he saw him standing at the other corner of the room keenly watching both them and others in the cafeteria.

"You know, I think I am going to find this guy myself. I will not sit back and allow another woman to be attacked." Thea said determination.

"What?" Roy questioned panicked.

"It's the right thing to do. Since I found out about the others, I can't stop thinking that if one of them had come forward, then he might have been caught sooner. Everyone already knows about my attack. I am going to find this man and you, Roy Harper, are going to help me," Thea said with finality.

S-5

Oliver shifted nervously in front of his Professor. Felicity had edited the first few chapters and had suggested a few methods for data collection that should meet with his Professor's standards but he still felt like his paper was a failure.

"You finally asked someone for help?" his Professor said levelling him with that all knowing gaze that terrified Oliver.

"Uh yes, is that a problem?" Oliver asked his eyes shifting from his Professor to his paper and back again.

"No, as long as the work is still yours, quite frankly you desperately needed someone to proof read your work for you. It also appears that your friend refined the structure of your paper so that you could better express your thoughts. It does actually flow better and I can clearly see what direction you intend to head in but can you explain how this anonymous e-mail questionnaire is supposed to work?"

Oliver swallowed, that was one of Felicity's ideas and he did not understand the technical details.

"My friend, is an IT specialist, she said that..."

"She?" his Professor commented interrupting him mid sentence.

"Yes, she said that once I developed the questionnaire, she could assist me with sending it to QC employees anonymously."

"And you will be the one developing the questionnaire, not your friend?" His professor asked.

"Yes, she won't interfere with my project, just assist and probably nag me occasionally to make sure I'm doing it properly," Oliver said with a fond smile on his face. He could clearly picture himself toiling over his paper on the laptop with Felicity seated next to him instructing him on keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste things.

"Very well Mr. Queen. I look forward to seeing you in two weeks," He said.

"Two weeks?" Oliver said confused. They had agreed to meet every week.

"I have no intention of forcing any of my students to come into to see me during spring break."

"Oh right, Spring Break," Oliver said stupidly. He couldn't believe he had actually forgotten about spring break, a college student's favourite time of the year. He wondered if that meant he had finally matured into the adult that his father always wanted.

S-6

Oliver was on his bed talking to Felicity through the laptop. As much as he loved being able to talk to her, he hated it at the same time because he couldn't reach out and touch her.

"Do you know how hard it was for me not to go to your desk today? He asked her.

He could see the blush forming on her face. Their date the night before had been an absolute disaster. He had taken her to an Italian restaurant that he knew had a nice romantic setting. What he didn't know was that the paparazzi had been on the lookout for a mysterious blonde woman that had been seen at his mansion. Someone at the restaurant had tipped them off that Oliver Queen had made a reservation and before they could even start on the appetisers they had been flooded with paparazzi taking their pictures. The tabloids the next day had a field day with Felicity's history calling her a gold digger and calling Oliver the biggest whale of her life. She had to explain to him what a whale was in Vegas.

"It was hard for me too!" She insisted. "I really wanted to just hug you."

Oliver smiled warmly at her. She had a way of filling his heart with all these nice pleasant feelings.

"Can I ask you to do something for me?" he asked her.

"Sure as long as it doesn't involve slowly torturing the paparazzi to death because I can see it clearly in your eyes Oliver, you want them to suffer!"

Again, he laughed. She could always find a way to make him laugh.

"I want you to go with Thea on a one week survival course next week." He had given this idea a lot of thought after last night. The paparazzi had scared Felicity and some of them tried to pull her away from him to question her about their relationship when they were trying to leave the restaurant.

"Oliver I have work," Felicity reminded him.

"I can arrange for a vacation for you." Before Felicity opened her mouth to respond, Oliver continued, "Seriously, how long have you worked for QC?"

"About 4 years,"

"And have you ever taken a single vacation day,"

Felicity's mouth clamp shut.

"Point proven, you're taking next week off," he dictated.

"Why do I even need a survival course?"

"Because you're in danger by association; the Queens are targets and if anything were to happen, I need t o know that you will stay calm and act not react."

"How much can I learn in one week? Will it really make a difference?" Felicity asked

"One lesson can improve your chances of survival by 50%," Oliver said seriously,

Felicity eyed him skeptically. "Where did you come up with that figure?"

"No idea," he admitted, "But I know people think you're smart and knowledgeable when you start quoting statistics."

Felicity laughed, "Have you ever heard of the saying, there are lies, damn lies and statistics?"

Oliver chuckled for a bit before he sobered and showed her his serious face.

"When the attack happened, I was in the hospital for a month afterwards. The first few days were critical for me. They weren't sure if I was going to make it. When I got out of the hospital, I was terrified of many things. Life was very difficult until the day I met a man called Yao Fei. He turned my life around. His son-in-law runs a survival company and I want you and Thea to learn some of the skills he taught me. If you don't want to do this for me, at least do it for Thea, she doesn't realise it but she needs this. I see the panic and hesitation when she walks into the room particularly when people are behind her. She thinks it will go away if she just gets back to her normal life but it won't. She needs to deal with it and it would be great if she had someone there with her. Think about it please."

"Ok," Felicity yawned.

Oliver smiled, "Good night, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Night," Felicity said before dramatically blowing him a kiss and switching off the video feed.

S-7

Oliver entered the ground floor of Merlyn Global and headed straight to security.

"Oliver Queen, I have a lunch meeting with Tommy Merlyn," he said to the guard.

The guard nodded and soon he was heading up to see Tommy. It had taken him ten minutes to change out of the Olivia disguise back to himself in the coffee shop across the road from Merlyn Global. As the elevator door opened, he met Malcolm Merlyn waiting.

"Oliver, it's good to see you again," He said extending his hand.

Oliver shook it. "I would love to chat, but I'm on a very tight schedule and I'm here to see Tommy." He had to get back to QC at the end of his lunch break or Liam would start throwing a fit.

"Of course, business is busy these days," Malcolm said. He pointed in the direction of his son's office and soon Oliver was seated in front of his best friend.

"To what do I owe this honour? Oliver Queen never comes to visit little old me. Though I think I would have much rather received a visit from the lovely Ms. Harper," Tommy said waggling his eyebrows at Oliver.

"Tommy," Oliver hissed.

"Ok you said this had something to do with Thea. You wanted us to talk to her together?"

Oliver explained his plan for Thea's spring break and Tommy immediately objected. Oliver then confided in his friend everything that was going on at QC and how the attack on his father had been planned with assistance from someone inside QC. He reminded him how Yao Fei and Slade Wilson had helped him deal with the after effects of the attack and he was sure Thea needed that after her attack.

Tommy remembered those first few months after Oliver got out of the hospital. He could see that he was slowly losing his best friend and Tommy had no idea how to help him. They had met Yao Fei when Oliver had tried to pick up Shado, his daughter, at a coffee shop. At first Tommy had thought it was hilarious. The old man had said Oliver could get a date with Shado if he could get past him but every time Ollie tried, Yao Fei put him on the floor. That had been the beginning of a two year journey for Oliver that created this confident more focused man. Tommy had started to see the same signs of trauma in Thea as he had in Oliver in the early days. Perhaps Ollie was right, Thea needed this and maybe doing this now, could save Thea from some of the emotional pain he knew Ollie went through.

Oliver glanced at the clock on the wall. "I need to go now. I'll see you tonight with Thea," Oliver said as he got up from the chair and buttoned his jacket closed.

"Oh and Oliver, next time bring Felicity, you're much more fun when your girlfriend is around!" Tommy said ducking as Oliver picked up the nearest file and threw it at him.

S-8

Roy Harper pulled the hoodie over his head. Thea had given him the address of her bodyguard for him to meet them. She wanted to discuss her 'plan' for finding her attacker. How he got himself wrapped up in this impending disaster he did not know but he guessed he was always a sucker for a pretty face. He found the place easily and was surprised when a white woman answered the door.

"Uhhh, I think I have the wrong apartment," an embarrassed Roy mumbled.

"No you're in the right place. Johnny the kid's here. I'll go get Felicity. I'm Layla by the way." She said holding the door open for Roy to enter.

The first thing he noticed was Thea playing with a little baby girl on the floor of the living room.

"That's my daughter Sara," Diggle said to the man.

"Oh," Roy responded and Thea looked up at him and gave him a sweet smile. She seemed so relaxed playing with the toddler.

"Ok, we're all here," Layla said as she entered with a blonde woman that Roy instantly recognised as Felicity Smoak or as the tabloids had been portraying her lately, Oliver Queen's latest gold digging girlfriend. At least that explained some the reporters he saw outside the complex.

"Great, everyone this is Roy, Roy that's Diggle, his wife Layla and I'm sure you know who Felicity is, you can't turn on a tv without seeing her face on it." Thea commented disgustedly.

"What's the plan?" Roy asked getting straight to the point.

"Digg asked Felicity to dig through some of the campus security records to see if any incidents were reported but not taken to the police. I'm going to question that red head about her attack and try and talk to the others. Maybe if I can get the details, we'll be able to find something that connects the attacks together."

"Thea I will help you but you have to tell your brother because I am not keeping this from him," Felicity told her.

Roy remembered meeting Oliver at the hospital. That had been quite intense. He wondered what the blonde saw in the man. The entire time he had interacted with him he had been very broody but he supposed he hadn't met him under the best of circumstances.

"I will. I'm meeting up with him and Tommy later,"

"So what am I supposed to do?" Roy asked.

Thea gave Roy a very mischievous smile.

S-9

It was Tequila Thursday at Verdant, one of Sara's initiatives at the club to test what the Thursday market was like. It wasn't as crowded as a Friday night but there was definitely a healthy crowd. Sara set up a special tequila bar for body shots in one corner and it had attracted quite a young group of customers.

As soon as Oliver and Felicity arrived, he led her to the back of the club and down into the basement. It had been the first time that he had been there since its discovery and Sara had fixed it up quite nicely as a private lounge. It was the perfect place to discuss their plans for the QC conspirators.

Tommy and Sara were already downstairs waiting for them.

"Hi," Sara said greeting them. "Felicity there's a little problem with one of the cameras in the office, do you mind checking on it while you guys wait for Thea?"

"Of course, not a problem, it's probably just a loose wire."

Both girls disappeared and a few minutes later Thea, Dig and Roy arrived.

"What's he doing here?" Oliver asked glaring at Roy.

"To help us obviously or have you forgotten that you wanted someone to follow people. Roy will work. He also lives in a house in the Glades which is perfect for Olivia especially since they share the same last name!" Thea responded angrily.

Sara and Felicity, with a very full glass of red wine, returned to find a stare off between Thea and Oliver.

"Hey, why does she get a drink and none of us?" Tommy piped up.

"Because she actually does work at the club instead of lounge around and pretend to be attending to the VIP guests," Sara told him sternly.

"You wound me!" Tommy said dramatically.

Felicity rolled her eyes and turned her attention towards the Queen siblings. "Ok you two break it up. I assume this is about Roy. We need him Oliver unless you think there are enough of us to follow around everyone we suspect. Roy is trust worthy; he proved that when he saved your sister's life and let's not forget he's also helping your sister with her little mission as well!" Felicity reminded him.

"Ok fine," he said taking a seat on a sofa and pulling Felicity to sit beside him.

"Hey, easy there tiger, you're going to spill my precious wine," Felicity pouted.

"Please, no pet names in front of me or any form of PDA!" Thea commented feigning puking motions.

Oliver ignored her. "The plan is simple. We have our little ring of suspects, we will use my alter ego to apply pressure and we'll see which member in the ring breaks first."

S-10

Felicity watched Oliver haul her's and Thea's backpacks out of the trunk of the town car towards the giant cargo plane that was parked on the runway of a private air strip outside of Starling City.

"I'm surprised you're doing this willingly," Thea said to the blonde besides her. "It's my first spring break as a college student and my brothers are forcing me to go on some stupid survival thing. At least I managed to force Tommy to come with us." Thea said smirking at the dark haired billionaire.

"I like to think that I seized the opportunity to meet this Slade Wilson that Ollie's always talking about and remind him that I am in fact, Ollie's best friend, even if I have to beat it into him." Tommy said.

"Uh huh, you stick to that train of thought," Thea said as she watched a large man with an eye patch over one eye coming towards them.

"So you must be the baby sister, the current girlfriend and the idiot friend?" Slade asked when he reached them.

"Idiot best friend," Tommy corrected.

"Wait did he just agree he was an idiot?" Felicity whisphered to Thea.

"Both of my brother's are idiots. Better get used to it," Thea advised her.

Slade was soon leading them towards the plane when Oliver pulled her back for a second.

"I am going to miss you. I really wish I could be on the island with you," Oliver said as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"An island, you didn't mention an island?" Felicity said poking him in the chest with her index finger.

"I didn't mention an island in the South China Sea?"Oliver replied.

"No, I think I would have remembered talk of an island that far away."

"Oh well, don't tell Slade I mentioned it." He closed the remaining distance between them and thoroughly kissed her goodbye.

"Oi, lovebirds it's time to go!" Tommy called out at the top of his voice.

Oliver reluctantly ended the kiss and rested his forehead against hers.

"I'll be here next week Sunday to pick you guys up," he reminded her. She gave him once last peck on the lips and then joined his sister and best friend.

As Oliver watched the plane race down the runway and take off into the air, he realised that the coming week was going to be very bleak and lonely but he had a lot of work to do if he was going to move his plans forward.

S-11

After several hours and a change of planes, Felicity, Thea and Tommy landed on the water in a small bay. They grabbed their gear and jumped off into the cold water that reached up to mid calf.

As soon as they were on shore, Slade started turning the plane around. "Ok guys I'll be back in a few days enjoy!" he shouted out while he pulled back on the throttle to take off again.

"You're leaving us here!" Felicity screamed at him from shore and Slade gave her an evil smirk in return.

"I am so going to murder Ollie when I get home!" Thea said angrily.

"If we get home," Tommy said looking around the deserted area. The sun was setting fast and he thought he saw movement in some bushes nearby. It was going to be a hell of a week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	7. Spring Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An: I do not own Arrow.

S1

Felicity watched with horror as the plane took off into the sky. The twinkling stars behind it seemed to mock her and remind her that the sun was setting fast and they needed to find shelter.

"I am so going to kill Ollie!" Thea reiterated as she kicked a pebble on the small beach into the water.

"Get in line Thea!" Tommy told her.

Felicity turned to look at them, "Plotting to kill Oliver now is not going to help us survive this. We have food and water in our packs and according to Mr. Wilson lectures on the plane, the next priority should be shelter," she recited to them.

Thea was staring into the tree line "It looks kind of dark in there and it's getting kind of chilly. How do we start a fire?" she asked.

Felicity turned to stare at her. "Didn't you pay attention to the brief Slade gave us on the plane?"

"Uh I may have dozed off," the brunette reluctantly admitted.

Felicity glanced at Tommy and he looked away sheepishly as well.

"In our defence, I didn't think we were just going to be dropped on an island and told to survive. I thought, you know, they would have eased us into it or something like that," Thea said.

Felicity sighed loudly as it suddenly became crystal clear why Oliver so desperately wanted her to participate as well. He knew his sister and best friend weren't going to take it seriously until they were forced to. Thank god she had found the information interesting and asked Slade many questions. It was going to be a very long week!

S2

It was Saturday night and Oliver decided to make an appearance at Verdant. He was watching the movements of the various women in the club and how they were trying to seduce men. A big part of the plan this week hinged on Olivia being able to flirt properly. He had tried to recall his play boy days and the many women he had been with but the only picture his mind would supply him with was Felicity. He was amazed at how thoughts of her had started dominating his mind in such a short period of time. He hadn't even known her two months yet.

He spotted an angry Laurel Lance headed towards him and he was instantly reminded of the event that lead to their permanent breakup. Laurel had returned to her father's house much earlier from a class than he had expected and caught him and Sara doing it doggy style on Laurel's bed and she had been very angry. In hindsight, it could have been worse, it could have been the detective discovering them on his bed but they had gotten away with that the day before.

"Why is my boyfriend away on some survival trip?" she demanded angrily.

"Laurel, hi, nice to see you too," He said crossing his hands in front of his chest.

"I'm still waiting for an answer," She said tapping her foot impatiently.

"I'm sorry," he said seriously looking into her eyes.

"You're sorry you sent my boyfriend away?" Laurel asked for clarification moving her hands to her hips.

"No, I'm sorry for hurting you. What I did to you and Sara. It was awful, I was awful," Oliver said sincerely,

Laurel scoffed at his apology throwing her hands up in the air. "You expect me to believe that. Next thing you'll be telling me that you regret it and it was the biggest mistake of your life."

"Actually, I don't regret it. If it didn't happen we would not have broken up permanently. We might still be stuck in that toxic relationship we were in. I am the man I am today because of the experiences I've been through. Look at Sara," he said nodding to the other end of the bar where Sara was happily pouring drinks for a few customers.

"Sara has grown tremendously and I've heard you now have a better friendship than you did back then. It's time to let go of the past. Focus on Tommy and what you have with him now. He really likes you."

"He obviously doesn't like me enough to say no to your request," she pointed out bitterly.

"His decision was based on more than a simple request from me. He had always been curious about what it was I went through and my friendship with Slade. This is his opportunity to understand that better and be there for Thea at the same time. There are multiple reasons he wanted to do this. It's not a black or white decision. I know for a fact he didn't really want to leave you but if you're relationship is solid, one week away should not be an issue, Laurel," Oliver tried to explain her.

Laurel huffed and walked away from him to talk to her sister. She was not ready to deal with Oliver Queen's apology.

S3

Felicity had successfully got a fire going behind a log on the beach and the three of them were huddled around it. It had taken about ten attempts before she got this one going. The wind on the beach was strong and she had had to find a way to shelter the fire from the strong gusts. They were closer to the tree line than she wanted to be. Her original plan was to move the log to the middle of the beach so that they had a clear view of anything approaching but they were too weak to lift the log.

A low growling noise caused them all to jump.

"Do you think there are bears here?" Thea asked panicked.

Before anyone could answer a shape burst forth from behind a tree sending the three of them scampering in different directions. As soon as they were far enough away, the figure pulled off the head of the 'bear' to reveal a beautiful Asian woman. She touched her hand to her ear and engaged her coms.

"Slade, the boy is coming your way, Ivo the blonde is heading for you and Fryers you got the other girl."

She looked down at the makeshift fire and she couldn't help the laughter that erupted out of her as she remembered the faces of her targets as they ran off. At least one of them had the sense to run with their back pack. This was going to be a very interesting week.

S4

It had been 48 hours since they left and he missed them terribly. He didn't think he would feel this empty with them gone. Did his world really only consist of his little sister, his best friend and now Felicity? He had tried to keep busy so he wouldn't notice their absence and as a result he had spent a significant amount of time with his sister's bodyguard, John Diggle and her sort of boyfriend, Roy Harper planning the execution of the plan that week.

He knew they would have arrived at the island by now and he checked his e-mail every ten minutes hoping for an update from Slade. They would have figured out that 1) they were being left there and 2) they weren't alone. He knew Thea and Tommy for sure were planning his death and he hoped they hadn't roped Felicity in. He wondered how they would have handled the first test on the beach. He's pretty sure Tommy ran away screaming like a girl.

Oliver checked his e-mail and found an update from Slade. He quickly opened.

Hey Kid,

Dropped them off. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Slade

That was all? He already figured out that much on his own. He immediately hit reply and asked Slade for some more details and gently remind him that he wanted his family back in one piece and not scarred for life.

S-5

Thea hadn't stopped running yet. She had no idea where she was but she could swear the bear followed her. This was so not how she planned to spend her spring break. Why did she listen to her idiot brother? She could barely see where she was going and had managed to avoid a few tree trunks at the last moment but that still did not deter her from running.

Tommy was cold, alone and lost and he had no clue where he was. He had stopped next to some large rocks and was leaning heavily against them. He really needed to get in better shape. The forest canopy was thick and he couldn't even see the stars to navigate, not that he knew how to do that anyway. He listened carefully for any noises and when he heard none he relaxed a little more. He tried to remember what Felicity said about what their priorities should be. They were separated now but he knew trying to find each other in the dark on an island they knew nothing about would not work. He thought that it was best if he stayed by his rocks. They would shelter him from the wind and keep him warm. He could climb up on some and be off the ground and safe. Tomorrow morning he would start looking for Thea and Felicity.

Felicity settled behind a rather large tree and let her breathing calm down. She couldn't believe the panic that had flooded her system as the bear came at them. She didn't have much experience with wild animals but she was fairly sure the bear should have run after at least one of them.

She listened to see if she heard anything and then reached into her backpack to pull out her tablet. She had brought it in case she did get separated from Tommy and Thea. Technically, it was cheating but she wanted to make sure she was prepared for this trip. Didn't the boy scouts always say be prepared?

Before they left, Felicity had discreetly placed trackers on both Tommy and Thea. She had promised herself that she would only use the tablet for emergencies and this qualified as an emergency. Oliver would be so disappointed in her if she let something happen to Thea and Tommy. Besides Slade did tell her that you had to use your wits and all your resources available to you to survive, it's not her fault she packed more resources than she was supposed to have. He should really have checked their packs.

She turned on her tablet and connected it to the satellite phone she brought with her thinking that there would be no wifi hotspot nearby but she was surprised to see that her tablet was registering a wifi network.

"That's strange, maybe this island isn't as deserted as I thought it was." Felicity mumbled.

She opened the network and found it unsecured. She was outraged that anybody would have an unsecured network but then again, who's going to want to use wifi on a deserted island. She accessed her tracking programme and quickly pulled up the dots for Tommy and Thea. Thea was far away but she was sure she could get to Tommy quickly. She put her tablet in sleep mode to conserve power and headed off in Tommy's direction.

S-6

Olivia sat in her boss's office taking notes. Oliver had worn a skirt that was two inches shorter than his usual skirts and made sure to cross his legs as he sat. He was pleased that his boss's gaze kept dropping down to his legs as they discussed the meetings for that week.

There was a knock on the door that was followed by Mrs. Queen and Walter's secretary entering the office.

"Mrs. Queen to what do we owe this honor?" Liam asked standing up to address her.

She smiled that fake smile of hers. "I've decided to re-familiarise myself with the company. My son will be taking over soon and if I am going to be able to support him in his new role then I need to get my bearings at QC again. It's been a few years since I had any involvement in the company and Walter's Assistant volunteered to re-introduce me to the managers."

"Oh," Liam said clearly at a loss for words.

Moira looked down at her son, "It's a good thing I decided to come back, the dress code for QC seems to have slipped a bit. I remember the days when skirts were always below the knee." She commented primly.

Oliver opened his mouth to respond but his mother cut him off, "It's ok dear. I know times change and shorter skirts are supposed to be more acceptable now."

"I can assure you Mrs. Queen that all the staff at QC are professionally dressed at all times." Liam said.

Moira turned to watch him with a calculated gaze, "I'm sure they are."

As soon as she left, Liam became a bit paranoid and dismissed Oliver telling him they were done with their meeting. As Oliver closed the door behind him, he placed his ear to the door and heard Liam talking to someone about an emergency meeting the next day.

S -7

"Tommy," Felicity whispered. "Tommy?" she called again looking down at her tablet. She should be right on top of him.

"Up here?" Tommy called out to her.

Felicity turned towards some rocks but her eyes couldn't make out his shape.

"I hear you but I can't see you." Felicity responded.

Tommy started waving his hands at her.

"Ok, I think I see you now. That looks like a good spot. Stay there, I'm going to get Thea and bring her back here. It looks like she's run herself in a giant circle. She's close by. I'll be back in 15 minutes."

"You sure that's safe?" Tommy asked.

"I need you to stay here. I don't have a map of this place, my only way back to you is the dot on this screen. Don't worry, I found you didn't I?"

"Ok,"

15 minutes later Felicity returned with Thea in tow. Tommy helped both of them up to a little outcropping he had found and they huddled together for the rest of the night.

S-8

"I'm impressed with the kid's girl. It looks like someone actually listened to my lecture," Slade said to his colleagues.

"I'm impressed she thought far enough ahead to put trackers on her friends. Usually the women walk with tons of makeup and clothes in their packs, never anything actually useful." Shado responded.

"She seems quite smart and brave. Oliver has chosen his mate well," Yao Fei said.

"This only means it's time to step up our game a little earlier than usual," Slade said with a wide smile.

S-9

That night, Oliver confronted his mother about her appearance at QC.

"Did you think I was just going to sit back and let you and Walter handle this?" Moira said sternly to her son.

"Mother it is safer for you." Oliver argued.

"If there are problems at QC, I need to be there. I will not allow my children to inherit a company with problems caused by Robert and I. We created this mess and on behalf of Robert, I am going to fix it. Like it or not Oliver, I will be working at the company in Isabelle's office. Good night." She said as she walked away from her son.

Oliver clenched his fists. He had sent his sister away so she would be safe for the week and now he had his mother painting a bright red target on her back. Why could he never get a break? He entered the home gym and spent half an hour on the salmon ladder. The burn in his muscles felt good and the break from reality relaxed him. When he finally jumped down and went to his phone to check his messages he found that Slade had finally replied. It's always the moment when you stop waiting for the message that it comes.

Hey kid,

Your friends survived the first night but damn can your sister run! Also your girl's a lot smarter than we originally thought. We're bumping up the plans.

Slade

Bumping up the plans? No no, no, no. They were supposed to spend the first three days on the island bumbling around before they introduced the idea of sharing the island with mercenaries. What the heck did Felicity do in one day to make Slade want to start terrorising them earlier?

S-10

The rays of sun that broke through the thick forest canopy warmed them and gave them a better view of where they were. The treeline was about six feet away from their rocks. The trees were tall and green with plenty of space between them.

Felicity sat with her back against the rock face and her tablet and a solar charger from Palmer Technologies sitting in the sun. The charger worked ok but the rate at which it charged her tablet was much slower than her actual use so far. At present rate, her tablet would be drained in three hours.

"So have you figured out why there is wifi here yet?"

"I hacked their servers and found a map of the island as well as what they had planned for us for the week. The name of the company running this trip is Shadow Survival Services (SSS). Slade Wilson is one of the Directors of the company along with his wife, Shado and father-in-law Yao Fei.

"So if we know what they are planning we can stay ahead of them?" Thea asked.

"Sort of, the reports indicated that they are stepping up their plans but I can't keep this tablet on too long. I want to preserve the charge and give it time to recharge."

"Do you know where they are based on the island?" Tommy asked.

"No, why?"

"Wifi, means servers, which means power. Where ever there base is you can plug in and hopefully we can hide under their noses." Tommy said

"That's brilliant!" Felicity and Thea chorused.

"I'll hack an NSA satellite and use it to scan for power sources."

"You can do that?" Thea asked in wonder.

"I can do a lot of things but pretend you didn't hear that. I don't want to get off this island only to head straight to jail." Felicity responded. "Ok their base is in the south of the island by one of the bays."

"Let's go then," Tommy said as his stomach rumbled loudly.

"There's granola's in our packs, you should have one." Felicity said while shutting down her tablet to put it away safely. She had taken a general bearing of where South was.

"Uhh, I kind of left the pack at the fire last night." Tommy admitted sheepishly.

"Me too," Thea said.

Felicity sighed and reached into her pack and pulled out a granola bar for each of them. Thank god she walked with a little more than what had been recommended. Felicity moved to the edge of the rock to climb down and promptly sat back against the rock face.

"One problem though guys. I just discovered that I'm afraid of heights so if any of you can figure out how to get me down to the ground that would be great." Felicity said.

S-11

Before Felicity had left, she had arranged for Oliver to access the feeds from the security cameras in QC from his computer at work. Liam had just left to go upstairs to a meeting that was not on the original schedule and Oliver followed him via the cameras to the large conference room in the HR office. So far he had seen four other men enter after Liam and he realised since he didn't know how to rewind the feeds to see who would have entered before Liam, he needed to wait till the end of the meeting to see who left. As a result Oliver, didn't leave his desk for the entire period.

An hour and a half later, 10 men exited the room, all of them were top level management, if only he could have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. At lunch, Oliver decided to mention the meeting casually to Melanie. She worked as the Secretary of the HR department. She would have organised the meeting.

"Yeah the meeting was such a pain in the ass, the connection to Russia kept getting blocked and your manager kept calling me to tell the guys in the server room to fix the firewalls to allow the call. Apparently, with Felicity on vacation, nobody knows what to do to make it work properly.

"Russia?"

"Yeah Isabelle was conference calling with them or at least attempting to. I think they gave up after an hour."

Cold dread filled Oliver. Isabelle was involved in whatever was going on. He needed to talk to his mother and Walter right away. He hated to admit it but his mother's move to return to the company had certainly worked far better than any of his plans to draw out their opponents. Isabelle must be throwing a tantrum that Moira Queen was sitting in her office.

S-12

That night, Oliver met with his mother and Walter in the drawing room. He sat in an armchair while Moira and Walter sat on the sofas facing each other across the coffee table. Oliver couldn't help but think that the coffee table was now the physical manifestation of the distance that had grown between his mother and step father. Oliver explained about the meeting, the persons he was able to see on the security cameras and intel he discovered from Melanie.

"That bitch!" Moira exclaimed surprising Oliver with her language.

"Mom, I'm sensing a little history here," He commented.

Moira took a moment to compose herself.

"Your father was having an affair. Well, he had many affairs but the one with Isabelle stood out."

"So contrary to what Thea and I thought, you two had an open marriage then," Oliver said sticking in a comment.

Moira glared at her son and continued on with her story, "he was going to leave us for her but when he developed his heart problems he realised that his family was too important to leave. He broke things off with her but she refused to accept that and threatened to go public with the affair. We were able to negotiate a deal with her that promoted her to VP of the company in return for her silence."

"Why bother with a deal? If she went public, the press would have only paid attention for a week, possibly comment that the fruit didn't fall far from the tree and then move on to the next scandal. It would have blown over."

"She has videos, she ... showed me a clip of one as proof," Moira said.

"Oh," Oliver replied. He shouldn't be surprised though. She had tricked him into being caught on camera as well. It seemed to be her modus operandi.

"Moira, you never thought to mention this to me once?" Walter asked finally breaking his silence.

"I didn't want to go back to that issue. What I had with you was different and I didn't want issues from my previous marriage affecting this one. Whatever Isabelle was, she appeared to be a competent business woman and things seemed fine with the company. Perhaps if you had told me of your suspicions earlier, I might have been able to point you and Ms. Smoak in the right direction."

"Touché," Walter replied.

"You purposely chose Isabelle's office to set up shop in, didn't you?" Oliver accused.

"Yes I figured if something corrupt was going on, she would be involved somehow. I thought the best way to rattle the nest was to ruffle her feathers." Moira explained.

"We need to be prepared then. If they were meeting, then they are coming up with a strategy to handle your interference and protect themselves from exposure." Walter said thinking.

"When Felicity gets back, I can ask her to start looking for where Isabelle would have those videos stored and I'll have Diggle and Roy gather more information on all of the men involved. If Isabelle keeps blackmail material, she's bound to have something on everyone involved and if we can figure out what that is, then we could perhaps use it to get her co-conspirators to flip on her. I also have a friend in Russia, Anatoly, that could check out what Isabelle has been up to there."

"That sounds like an excellent beginning, I'm going to talk to a few of my legal friends and see if there is a way we can keep a lid on what's happening." Walter said.

Oliver nodded and exited the room to leave his mother and Walter to sort out their issues. He checked his phone to see if there was another update from Slade but there was none. He supposed he had to settle for the video that they had uploaded for him of Tommy and Thea trying to coax a terrified Felicity off of a rock that was only six feet off the ground, at most.

S- 13

Over the course of the next day, they ran from Slade's men, a wild boar and some strange territorial bird that kept swooping down at their heads. Felicity was running out of food fast and she decided it was time to outsmart Slade and his team and take over their base.

During one of her forays through Shadow Survival Services' servers she had found the video of herself with the rock, the 'bear' attack and one of them dodging that crazy bird. That reinforced to her that they were being watched. She decided to use her satellite phone to hack into the communication system and listen in on their plans while she sent Thea and Tommy off to supposedly gather firewood and draw the attention away from her. She realised they were going to have to play along with what Slade had planned for them while they slowly made their way to the south of island. Perhaps, even make them feel that they were the ones causing them to run south.

They were now exactly where she wanted them to be. She sent a false communication to the teams that were following them to regroup because the personnel at the base camp would keep an eye on them. When those teams moved far enough away, Felicity used her tablet to disrupt their communications grid and hack into their base and set off their emergency fire alarm to empty the base camp. She watched in the distance as the base personnel left through a port hole in the ground and went to gather at a muster point a mile away. They took this opportunity to enter the base and lock the door behind them quickly.

Felicity took control of the remaining systems that she couldn't access from her tablet and locked all the entrances into the base. She brought all the security systems online and set up programmes to monitor where Slade and his men were at all time. She figured it would take them half an hour to realise they were duped. She left the control room and went in search of Tommy and Thea. She found them relaxing in the living area with mac and cheese and alcohol. Tommy had kicked his feet up on the sofa and was sipping what looked like a nice glass of scotch. Thea was shovelling the Mac and Cheese into her mouth with a glass of red wine nearby.

"Now this is the life," Tommy said reaching for the remote to turn on the television only to be disappointed when it showed a security feed of the airplanes floating in the bay.

"You didn't expect cable did you?" Felicity mocked.

"Well they seemed to have everything else?" Tommy said lifting his glass of scotch and gesturing around the room they were seated in. It was quite luxurious compared to the terrain outside. There were three servers, a 55" tv, and a coffee table in the centre.

"If you want, I can set it up so we can stream Netflix. I'm sure we can marathon Dr. Who," Felicity informed him.

"Dr. What?" Tommy and Thea asked confused.

"Who," Felicity replied.

"Who what?" Tommy asked.

"What?" Felicity asked confused.

"Nevermind," Tommy said.

"I just want a hot shower now," Thea said as she stared at her empty plate of Mac and Cheese. "This has been the worst spring break ever!"

"Isn't this your first spring break?" Tommy asked innocently.

"So?" Thea asked.

"I don't see how it can be the worst spring break ever if you have no other spring breaks to compare it to." Tommy pointed out.

"Shut up!" Thea barked.

The Walkie talkie Felicity had picked up from the control centre sprang to life, "Felicity Smoak?"

"Hi Slade," Felicity responded back recognising his voice instantly.

"So you think you're in control of the base?"

"I know I'm in control of the base," she replied confidentially as she pushed Tommy's feat off of the sofa and took a seat.

"I can wait you out. You don't have food in there to last forever," Slade replied

"No but we have enough to last till Saturday and that's when you have to fly us out because you have a new client coming in. It's in your interest to leave us alone till then. I'll be kind and restore all of your communication systems and e-mails. I'll also leave all of your bank accounts alone and I won't cancel with any of your clients. Do we have a deal?"

"You know I can use my team and storm the base?" Slade pointed out.

"You could, but you built this base to survive a nuclear holocaust. The generator and all essential systems are underground inside of the base. All of your weapons are in here. None of your team thought to take anything with them when they left the base. Afterall, fire drills teach you to leave everything and exit as quickly as possible. Plus I'm sure you don't want to cause any structural damange to this facility that you worked so hard to build. Oh nice job on the plans for the extension. I'm sure it will all work out but if you do decide to attack, I can't guarantee that those plans will stay intact either."

"Grr, it's a deal," Slade grudgingly agreed.

"Great, see you on Saturday at the designated time," Felicity said. There was no further communication from Slade.

"So that's where Oliver got his growl from," Tommy exclaimed.

Thea and Felicity shook their heads at him.

"Should we e-mail Oliver?" Felicity asked.

"Nah, he doesn't need to know how this turned out until we see him," Tommy responded.

"Ok," Felicity replied as she headed into the kitchen to look for a packet of Mac and Cheese for herself.

S-14

Thursday morning Oliver received a text from Slade.

Hey kid,

This is the last time we ever do a favour for you. Your friends have locked us out of the base and now we have to survive on the island.

Slade

Oliver couldn't believe it. How the hell did his sister, best friend and girlfriend outsmart a group of highly skilled mercenaries? Maybe they were better at surviving than he thought.

Things at QC had been very strange lately. The Managers were meeting everyday and a memo had recently been circulated that Isabelle was scheduled to return from Russia next week. How she had managed to worm her way back, Oliver wasn't sure, but he knew it had something to do with the board. He would hear the story from Walter and his mother when he got home. They had been outfoxed so far and Oliver didn't like feeling so far behind in the game. On the bright side, Roy had been fantastic at gathering information, some of it not legally obtained but Oliver was willing to over look that because now they had a good idea how to flip a few of the managers to their side.

S-15

Slade held up his end of the agreement and Felicity, Thea and Tommy had enjoyed the last few days on the island lounging around in relative comfort. She had managed to get Thea and Tommy hooked on Dr. Who too. The plane left on time and Slade decided to accompany them all the way back to Starling.

"So have we finally settled on what the revenge is going to be?" Tommy asked from his seat on the private jet, a can of caviar open in front of him. He had sure learned to appreciate some of the finer points in life and he couldn't wait to get back to his bed.

"Yes," both Thea and Felicity agreed.

Slade chuckled, "The poor kid is in for a hell of a time."

S-16

Oliver was waiting anxiously at the air strip for them to arrive. He hadn't received an update from Slade since they successfully took over his base of operations. The feeling of pride he had when he heard what they had done had soon be replaced with trepidation because he knew Slade would not take what they had done lying down and would have gone full out to regain control of his base. He hoped they manage to survive that onslaught. He was soon distracted from his thoughts when Laurel's car pulled up alongside his car.

"Hi, I didn't think you were coming to pick him up?" Oliver said to her as she got out of her car and joined him in front of his.

"It's been a week and I miss him. Of course I'm going to pick him up!" Laurel responded.

Oliver smiled at her. He was happy that Laurel and his best friend seemed to be hitting it off so well.

"I want to apologise for the way I acted at the club Ollie," she said to him.

"It's ok. You don't need to apologise. I understand what you feel about Tommy leaving for a week." He said to her.

"You do," she asked sceptically, an eyebrow rising, "You miss Tommy that much. Is there something going on between the two of you that I don't know about?"

Oliver looked stunned. Laurel of all people was implying that he was gay!

"Oh relax," she laughed. "Tommy asked me to drop a gay innuendo to you and watch your face. He said it would be priceless and it was."

Oliver smiled at her, "So you two talk about me."

"You are a big part of our lives. You were my first love and you're Tommy's best friend. Tommy realised that if he and I were to work, that you and I needed to be on better terms with each other. He assured me that like him, you too have changed and that it was worth giving you another chance. So for him, I made the effort. He also told me that after seeing that face, that all my anger would fade away."

"Well did it work?" He asked hopefully.

"Maybe a little but this friendship" Laurel said pointing between herself and Oliver, "is a work in progress."

The sound of a plane approaching both reached their ears at the same time and they both anxiously looked into the sky.

"I think I see it," Laurel said pointing to the end of the runway.

"Yeap it's them. They should be on the ground in three minutes."

They watched as the plane landed and t taxied to the hangar. Thea was the first one off the plane followed by her half brother. Tommy's entire face lit up at the sight of Laurel.

"Hey Baby!" Laurel said running up to him and giving him a kiss at the base of the stairs.

Thea beamed at the couple as her brother walked over.

"Welcome back," he said to them.

"You're not in our good books at the moment," his sister said to him crossing her arms over her chest.

"Where's Felicity?"

"Right here," Slade answered. He was carrying a blushing Felicity in his arms.

Oliver frowned.

"Would you believe that Felicity fell madly in love with Slade and they eloped?" Thea asked.

"Slade is married to Shado," Oliver responded automatically watching the man carry Felicity down the stairs.

"Shucks," Thea said. "I was hoping to scare the hell out of you, like you did to us when we saw that plane take off. But don't worry I'll get you when you least expect it!"

Oliver ignored his sister. His entire attention was on Felicity.

"I was kind of clumsy getting off the plane in Hong Kong and I twisted my ankle. Can you believe that? I survive the island without a scratch but I twist my ankle getting off that rackety old plane!" Felicity confessed.

Oliver chuckled, God, had he missed her.

Slade handed Felicity gently over to Oliver. "This one's a keeper kid,"

"I know," Oliver said with a goofy little grin on his face.

"Good because you should know I gave her my personal contact number in case she ever needed me to kick your arse for her. So be a good little boy." Slade informed him.

"Now, its been lovely meeting you all. As you know we have another paid group on the island so I need to get back to help Shado."

"Bye it was great meeting you," Felicity said on behalf of everyone.

Tommy and Thea went to Laurel's car and Oliver took Felicity to his own.

"Slade seemed to like you," Oliver said happily as he slide behind the steering wheel.

"You think so, he's kind of scary," Felicity admitted.

"Oh I know so. Any other girl and he would have thrown you from plane to me."

"He wouldn't have done that." Felicity replied

"I've seen him do it at least 8 times. I can have Shado send me the video if you don't believe me."

"That's ok, I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed," Felicity said before she looked slyly at Oliver. "I won't be opposed to company either but its sleeping only mister, no funny business, yet."

"I would be honoured to join you my lady and I promise I will keep it PG for now." Oliver said turning to her and wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Felicity laughed. The melodic sound eased all of his anxieties and somehow he knew next week was going to be a better week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. That is the last pre-written chapter. We're all caught up to ff.net. I'm hoping to have the next chapter ready for next week but that's not guarantee.


	8. DJs and Bithces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow

When Felicity arrived at her apartment she dropped her bag by the door and headed straight to the shower. She told Oliver he could make himself at home and he could order Chinese. The menus were on her fridge. He had ordered a number 5 and 3. Those were the numbers she had circled. She thanked him when she got out of the shower; those were her favourites. While they waited for the food to arrive she told him all about the island and what had happened. He watched mesmerised as her hands did most of the talking. The food soon arrived and Felicity wasted no time enjoying the Chinese food she missed. Then they retired to her room to sleep. The jet lag was getting to her and her system was still running on island time which meant she missed most of the night there. She had fallen asleep easily and woken up in Oliver's arms. If she wasn't such a selfish person she might recommend the experience to other women.

Felicity was amazed at how easy it was for them as a couple in the morning. She hadn't had many boyfriends and of the few that had stayed over, the first morning after had always been a little awkward but not with Oliver. They seem to just click and know what the other needed. It was like Oliver had lived there with her for years. There was one thing that did irk her tough. She had let Oliver take a quick shower and he had dropped his wet towel on the bed. Other than that, the domestic Oliver was perfect.

Just after breakfast, Felicity and Oliver headed across to Diggle's apartment.

"Welcome back, how was the trip?" Diggle asked letting them in.

"Good," Felicity replied.

"So how did you take control of the base of highly skilled mercenaries?" he asked smirking. Oliver had kept him in the loop on everything that was going on, on the island.

Felicity grinned. "They underestimated me."

"Ah the fatal flaw in their plan," Diggle said before turning to look at Oliver, "Never under estimate Felicity."

"I know," Oliver said.

"Great, there's a meeting tonight at Verdant to bring you, Tommy and Thea up- to- date on what's happened while you were gone."

"Good we'll be there. I was just going to show Oliver the park down the road." Felicity said.

Diggle smiled at the young couple, "Enjoy yourself and Oliver, please keep Felicity away from the monkey bars."

S-2

Thea went straight to bed when she arrived at the mansion and woke up at lunch time the next day. The first thing she did was call Roy.

"Hi,"

"Hi,"

"So I kind of missed you." She confessed.

"Yeah me too."

"Great so can I see you today." She asked hopefully

"Actually, I guess your family didn't get a chance to tell you but with Isabelle coming back there's a meeting tonight at Verdant."

"Oh joy, Isabitch is back! Just what my brother needs in his life, another psycho ex-girlfriend." Thea commented.

"It's a bit more complicated than that." Roy told her.

"It is? Oh god please don't tell me she's pregnant with Ollie's baby!"

"No nothing like that."

"Phew, you really had me scared there for a moment. I mean I do want to be an aunt, but I don't want her for a sister-in-law. I've actually grown quite close to Felicity so my brother better be prepared to stick that out or else."

"Listen Thea, I have to go, I'll see you later," Roy said.

"Ok," Thea said as he hung up. She jumped out of bed and headed straight to her closet to pick out the perfect outfit for the meeting.

S-3

Thea managed to get a quick trip in to the spa before the meeting that night. She needed to undo any damage that the island trip would have caused to her skin. She picked out a nice dress that showed off her long legs and she made sure to pair the dress with a pair of silver strappy heels. She was surprised to find her mother and Walter waiting for her downstairs.

"Mom, I never expected to see you go to a club," Thea commented dryly.

"This is a serious meeting and I expect you on your best behaviour Thea," Moira warned her daughter.

Thea rolled her eyes and tuned them out for the entire ride to Verdant. Before the meeting she managed to pull her brother aside.

"I'm only going to say this once, but you and Felicity are my OTP so you better not mess that up," She said sternly.

"Don't worry I don't intend to," He smiled softly at his sister.

"Good because I expect you to drive off into the sunset with her sometime in the future."

Oliver laughed at her.

"Oh what did you do to piss off Diggle?" Thea said as an angry Diggle marched up to them.

"Man, I thought I told you to keep Felicity off the monkey bars!" Diggle said pointing over to where a bruise could be seen on Felicity's knee.

"Digg, I swear I only looked away for a second," the blonde confessed.

Digg shook his head, "That's all she needs. She's been trying to get to the other side of the bars for weeks but her coordination sucks."

"Yeah I kind of realised that a bit too late," Oliver confessed.

"Just make sure you catch her the next time," Diggle told him.

"The next time?" Oliver asked horrified. He didn't want a next time. The sight of Felicity falling from the bars had practically given him a mini-heart attack.

"It's Felicity. There is going to be a next time," Diggle responded with a small laugh.

Moira cleared her throat and indicated she was ready to start the meeting. Oliver sat on the sofa next to Felicity and Thea sat on the other side of her. Walter and Moira were on separate chairs. Diggle, Lyla and Roy were on another sofa. Sara chose to stand.

"So what did we miss?" Thea asked everyone.

"Not much, but I'm glad you're back," Oliver said.

"Really, cause I haven't seen you since I arrived at the airport. I can feel the love Ollie," Thea teased him.

Oliver opened his mouth to respond but Felicity beat him to it.

"I'm sure we can work out some sort of arrangement where we can share him," Felicity said tilting her head in thought while she looked innocently at Thea.

"I'll have him during the day and you can keep him at night," The young Queen offered.

"Hey, I'm right here," A disgruntled Oliver commented.

"I believe we came here to discuss more important matters," Moira said with a disapproving look.

Walter took that cue to begin talking. "During the last week we discovered that Ms. Rochev is involved in the plot and quite possibly could be the person in charge. We were able to determine that at least 8 of the senior managers are involved. Mr. Diggle and Mr. Harper have been following their movements and we are pretty sure what illegal activities they are involved in but we do not know which ones to approach to flip them over to our side."

"I can help with that," Sara volunteered. At everyone's curious stare she elaborated.

"My girlfriend is visiting on Tuesday. She majored in psychology with an emphasis on profiling, she can tell you who will crack and how to crack them," Sara said

"Your girlfriend?" Oliver questioned.

"That all you got from that?" Sara asked.

"Sara, I'm sure your girlfriend is quite lovely but I feel uncomfortable incorporating another stranger into this." Moira said looking pointedly at Felicity.

"Felicity's not a stranger," Oliver and Thea said at the same time.

"Let's not fight," Walter said "Sara, can she be trusted?"

"Yes," Sara answered

"Is there any way you can get her to do this without telling her the truth?" Moira asked.

"I'm not lying to her" Sara replied immediately.

"Tommy and I can meet with her and feel her out. If she passes, we can ask her,"

"You and Tommy aren't exactly the best judge of females," his mother pointed out, "Perhaps Mr. Diggle and his wife should handle that decision,"

"I thought you didn't like strangers?" Oliver countered.

"I assure you I have thoroughly vetted Mr. Diggle and his wife. Both were honoured with numerous medals for serving our country. I trust Mr. Diggle with Thea's life. I can trust him with this as well."

Oliver didn't look like he was going to let the issue go, so Diggle spoke up. "Thank you for the vote of confidence Mrs. Queen. It might be best if Lyla and I met with her while she is with Oliver and Tommy. After all, they both own this club and Sara works for them. It would be highly suspicious for us to meet with her out of the blue. I'm sure Sara has talked about Oliver and Tommy to her."

Sara nodded in the affirmative.

"Then it's settled then," Thea said standing up to leave.

"Sit back down young lady. This is just the beginning of our plans. We have a lot more to discuss,"

She groaned and sat back down, why couldn't they be planning a party instead.

S-4

It was the Monday after spring break and Thea thought her teachers were being especially bitchy. They seemed to double her work load. She saw the red head girl approaching her in the corridor and she decided to stop and talk to her.

"Hi, how was your spring break?"

"Hi, it was ok."

"Meet any cute guys?" Thea asked as she watched the girl flinch.

"I don't go out anymore. The last time I went out was to Vertigo the night before the attack." Thea nodded in understanding. She had been feeling the same way until Oliver forced her to go the island.

Something clicked in her mind, she had been in Vertigo the night before her attack as well. "Were any of the other girls in Vertigo the night before their attack?"

"I don't know. We don't really talk about that."

"Can you ask for me? It's very important." Thea reached into her bag for a pen and pulled a piece of paper out of her notebook. She wrote her number down and handed it to the girl. "Please ask and call me with the answer."

"I will try."

Thea walked away with a wide smirk on her face.

"What was that about?" Diggle asked.

"I think I know where to begin our search for my attacker."

S- 5

Monday after work and Oliver was in his usual spot, his advisor's office.

"I see your fancy survey thing is working," his Professor grudgingly admitted.

"Yes, staff is responding and with some pretty interesting responses too," Oliver boasted.

"And I see you have another fancy statistical programme doing the analysis,"

"Yes Felicity wrote it for something to do with her thesis a few years ago and she let me borrow it to crunch my data."

His Professor's eyebrows rose, "Your girlfriend is indeed very talented."

Oliver beamed at him, "She is,"

"Make sure you hold onto her Mr. Queen, it's rare to find a woman that matches a man so well."

"I have no intentions of letting her go. I have learned from my past mistakes."

"That is good to hear. People rarely learn from the past and are doomed to repeat their mistakes. Now these recommendations in your proposal, they are too generic. This is your company. I want something QC specific to fix the problems you have identified. I will see you next week,"

Oliver took his dismissal and left. Just once he wanted to go into that office and come out without a huge workload. Every week there were always multiple problems with the paper and he swore he had to rewrite each chapter 3 times already.

S-6

Isabelle arrived via private jet at a landing strip just outside of Starling City. She told no one but her personal driver of her arrival time. For all intents and purposes, she was still in Russia scheduled to arrive in two days. This gave her time to plan.

Step 1: Get her office back

Step 2: Fire the Queens

Step3: Take control of the company and declare herself CEO

Step 4: Permanently handle the Queen problem

Step 1 would be easy. She already had most of the board wrapped around her little finger and she looked forward to throwing Moira out of the office herself. Step 2 was a little trickier but she had been working on this part of the plan for years. She almost had everything in place to discredit the Queens. None of the illegal activities inside of the company could trace back to her and for those who could point a finger at her, she had enough evidence on them to take them down with her. When the FBI finally caught on to the money laundering and sex rings, it was all going to trace back to the Queens, after all, she made sure that Oliver Queen signed for receipt of most of the paperwork and reports.

There was one troubling aspect to her plan and that was Walter Steele. Shortly after he was appointed as CEO, he had commissioned an extensive audit to review not only the financial position of the company but the internal controls and processes as well. It was his way of understanding everything that was going on. During the audit he had noticed some discrepancies that he queried and Isabelle had to scramble to produce documentation that had a plausible explanation for the discrepancy and submit it to the audit team without them knowing that it came from her. That whole process had taken 3 years and it appeared that Walter was satisfied with the results. Now she wasn't so sure about that conclusion since Moira had returned to the company.

Moira wasn't a wild card she hadn't accounted for. In truth, she was secretly hoping that she would come face to face with the Queen matriarch at one point so that she could get the satisfaction of rubbing the disintegration of Queen Consolidated into her face. No, the true wild card here was Felicity Smoak.

Walter was a brilliant man and when he had first started including Ms. Smoak in his projects, she had assumed that it had had something to do with the pepper spray incident and it was a way to smooth over any possible lawsuit that might have emerged from that. When Isabelle had heard about the incident she had been spitting fire at those managers. She had warned them repeatedly not to be reckless and she had even subtly suggested to them which women would be easier targets. One look at Felicity's file and you would know she would not be an easy lay. The only saving grace in the entire incident was that it happened outside of QC at a club which would have made the potential lawsuit easier to fight.

She now felt that Walter had taken the opportunity that the pepper spray incident presented and used it as a cover for the use of Ms. Smoak's services. Liam had told her how good Felicity was with computers and the real reason he gave her all of the hard projects was to keep her away from the other illegal ones. He was sure she would easily notice any inconsistencies in the system, where he would change and override security protocols if she was idle with nothing to do. A woman like that on Walter's team could be very dangerous to her plans and needed to be dealt with immediately.

S- 7

It was Tuesday night and Felicity was fidgeting excitedly on Oliver's bed while she waited for him to get dressed.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" Oliver asked as he walked out of his walk-in closet dressed in a black silk shirt with perfectly tailored black pants.

"Yeap," she said popping her p as she looked over her boyfriend appreciatively. "I have a lot of information to sift through. Diggle and Roy were surprisingly very thorough in their surveillance. I know this is Verdant's first charity event and it's important to you but stopping Isabelle is even more important and the sooner we can do that the better it is for us."

Oliver walked forward and placed a kiss on her forehead, "What did I do to deserve such a wonderful woman?"

"You abused your laptop by letting coffee fall on it!" she teased him.

"You'll be here when I get back?" He asked hopefully.

"Probably, I'm looking forward to testing what those babies you got me can do!" She was referring to the brand new computer system set up in the wine cellar. Before she had left for the island she had left him with the specifications for the system and he ordered everything she wanted. She set up the system the night before and tonight would be her first real chance to test out her babies. He could feel the excitement rolling off of her.

Oliver pulled her off the bed and into his embrace. He would only be gone a short time but he already felt like he was really going to miss her again. With a quick kiss to her forehead, he left before he changed his mind.

Half an hour later he entered the club and found Tommy, Sara and a tall brunette by the bar. He was aware that Sara's girlfriend had arrived that day and he knew Sara was going to bring her to the bar. Tommy seemed to be shifting around uncomfortably and Sara seemed to be smirking so Oliver concluded the introductions hadn't gone very well and Tommy put his foot in his mouth. He was trying to decide whether he should go over and save Tommy from the apparent awkwardness that had settled or if he should let him stew a little longer but Sara caught sight of him and motioned for him to join them. He reluctantly closed the distance between them.

"Hi Ollie, this is my girlfriend Nyssa," Sara happily introduced.

"Hi," Oliver said offering his hand.

"Hello," She responded with an Arabic accent.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Oliver said.

"Is it?" Nyssa arched her eyebrow at him. "I was under the impression that you were Sara's ex-lover and the reason she left the States in the first place. You should really be highly uncomfortable meeting your ex-lover's current lover and to make matters worse, I'm a woman. Most men usually have an issue when an ex finds comfort in another woman."

"I'm not most men," Oliver replied easily.

"Indeed, Mr. Queen,"

"Please call me Oliver," He said.

Silence descended upon them and Oliver was really wishing Felicity would have been there to fill the void. Usually he could rely upon Tommy but his best friend had clamped his mouth shut. He really wondered what had happened before he arrived. They were saved when Diggle and Lyla arrived. Tommy promptly excused himself and Oliver followed after him.

"Tommy," Oliver said entering the office after him, "What did you do?"

Tommy turned around and ran his hands through his hair. "I was nervous ok. Things have been going good between Laurel and Sara and I wanted to make a good impression on Nyssa but I put my stupid foot in my mouth and made a comment about not liking sausages as well."

Oliver let out a deep bellied laugh.

"It's not funny, Ollie. Laurel's going to grill me!" Tommy replied.

"Grill you?" Oliver said laughing harder. "You're getting like Felicity with unintended innuendos."

Tommy glowered at his best friend.

Outside the conversation had been going really well. Both Lyla and Diggle were telling Sara what they had seen of the Middle East and some of the customs and culture that they had learned. Lyla had actually spent some time in both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. It turned out that Lyla might have been in a club in Dubai around the same time that Sara was working there. The conversation continued to flow and Diggle and Lyla continued to probe subtly for information about Nyssa. Near the end of the conversation, Nyssa did something unexpected.

"So did I pass whatever test it was you were giving me?" She asked calmly.

Diggle and Lyla remained cool and collected. "What test?" Lyla asked.

Nyssa smiled at them. "Did you expect me not to notice the way you were asking questions and trying to discover as much about me as possible. Your approach was excellent. Make me feel comfortable by talking about my home and culture and then slowly steer the conversation in a more personal direction. You've obviously done this before; perhaps even when you were posted away. So I want to know what the final result was?"

"We wanted to know if you were trustworthy." Diggle said to her.

"I'm assuming the answer is yes since you didn't try to deny it a second time."

They both nodded.

"I'm disappointed that Laurel would stoop to this instead of asking me her questions herself. I won't hurt Sara." Nyssa said.

"Oh this wasn't Laurel's doing." Sara said speaking up for the first time.

Nyssa stared at her confused, "At the beginning of our relationship you were very concerned how your family was going to handle your preferred choice in partners now."

"This is something else. I offered your assistance to profile some people to a friend and that friend wanted to make sure you could be trusted. Apparently, because you were also my girlfriend they didn't want to trust my opinion of you."

"I understand," Nyssa said giving Sara a look that said they would have to talk later. Sara looked away guiltily.

Nyssa then turned to Diggle, "Please tell your employer that I prefer to deal directly with people. If they want me to do something, then they should come and talk to me themselves."

"I will convey your message. It was nice meeting you," Diggle said.

S-8

Oliver tried to leave the fundraiser after 30 minutes but various other businessmen came over to talk to talk to him and kept him a further three hours at Verdant. When he arrived home it was close to midnight and he was positive that if Felicity were still there, she would be sitting in front of her computers. He headed to the wine cellar and immediately felt as if he stepped into the twilight zone.

His mother was seated at a table surrounded by files while Felicity typed away at the computers three feet away from her. She was telling Felicity about the stuffed animal that Oliver had when he was four. He tried to rack his memories for a time when his mother casually spoke with any of his girlfriends but he couldn't find a single memory. No he definitely was in some sort of weird dream. Maybe he fell asleep on Felicity's couch watching that weird Dr. show or maybe he was in one of those weird alternate reality things.

His mother was getting to a rather embarrassing part of the story so Oliver decided to intervene, "Mom!".

"Ah at last!" She exclaimed. "Felicity and I have sifted through all the evidence we've gathered and we've ordered all the information. Of course, I'm a bit old fashioned so Felicity printed everything for me. We'll take these boxes to Ms. Raatko tomorrow. She passed Mr. Diggle's test."

"So she agreed?" Oliver asked.

"Not exactly but your mother is sure she can convince her," Felicity informed him.

"Oliver, why don't you take Ms. Smoak upstairs for the night. It's late and it might be more prudent for her to stay here than attempt to go home at this hour," his mother said surprising him. She had never made that offer to any of his previous girlfriends.

Moira left the room leaving Oliver alone with his girlfriend.

"Should I be afraid?" Oliver asked Felicity.

She looked at him strangely,

"You are getting along with her," he explained himself.

"Oh that. Well we didn't start off that way. That is the end result of an hour of subtle insults back and forth before we both agreed that we each had our own way of protecting you. After we realised that, things sort of became more friendly between us," Felicity said.

"Well whatever it is, I'm grateful I get to spend this night with you," he said wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Felicity shook her head, "only sleeping, I'm exhausted."

"As long as you're near me, I don't care what he we do," he admitted pulling her close to him and guiding her up to his room.

She snuggled close to him and said a silent thank you to google for having such a fantastic boyfriend.

S-9

The next day, Oliver had been summoned up to the HR Manager to discuss a summer position with the company. As the elevator doors opened he recognised two managers. He stepped into the elevator stood right in front of the doors. Ben Cromwell, the Account's Manager, was to his right and Jake Chesterfield, the Audit Manager to his left. The doors closed and they rose 3 floors before the elevator stopped abruptly.

"Crap it must be stuck. I'll call security," Ben said picking up the emergency phone. After a short conversation with security, he told the occupants of the elevator that they had to wait for 10 minutes.

"I suppose we have some time to kill then," Jake said

"I wonder what we should do," Ben responded.

Oliver felt Jake's hand brush against his side as Jake was shifting from side to side, humming to a tune Oliver didn't know. He ignored the brush but then he felt Ben do the same thing. A normal girl would have been intimidated and he hated to think of his sister or Felicity ever being in this position. Oliver wanted to punch them even more now. He could understand how a young innocent girl from the Glades could get wrapped up in this whole ring.

"Do you like working here Olivia?" Ben asked shifting closer to him.

"Yes," Oliver answered in what he hoped was a shy voice. He was struggling to keep his temper under control.

"We have a really good intern programme here and if you please your managers you could get hired for a more permanent position," Jake said stepping behind Oliver.

"Really good employees get the good jobs." Ben elaborated further.

"Are you a good employee?" Jake whispered into his ear behind him and groped his ass.

Before Oliver could stop himself he swung around and punched Jake in the face. There was sickening crunch as Oliver broke his nose and blood started flowing profusely. Jake started to curse or at least Oliver thought it was cursing. It was hard to tell what he was saying. Ben seemed horrified and didn't quite know what to do. Oliver figured he was the first 'girl' to do that. The elevators suddenly started to work again and it stopped at the next floor. Both men got out and Oliver continued on to the HR Manager's office. By the time he had stepped off the elevator, he was fired. It was ok though, Felicity caught everything on camera and recorded the elevator conversation that supposedly took place between security and Ben but had really been between Liam and Ben since Liam was controlling the elevator. Half an hour later Oliver exited the front door of QC with a little cardboard box that carried his personal contents. Tomorrow he would be back as Oliver Queen and he intended to give them hell!

S-10

A knock at the door disturbed Sara and Nyssa from their peaceful slumber. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. Even though the charity event had not gone as late as the club would usually have gone, Nyssa had kept her up until the early hours of the morning. The knocking was growing more incessant but Sara didn't want to move from bed.

"You should answer that. It's rude to keep them waiting so long," Nyssa told her.

Sara glared at her girlfriend. She got out of bed, grabbed a pair of sweatpants and an old stained t-shirt and angrily answered the door. Shock fell over her face when she saw who was at the door, "Mrs. Queen!"

Moira Queen stood outside her door, impeccably dressed with two bodyguards standing behind her.

"Hello Ms. Lance,"

"Uh, hi," Sara said still stuck in a stupor. Oliver's mother was the last person she expected to be knocking on her door.

"This is usually the point in the conversation where you invite a person inside dear." Moira pointed out to her.

"Right, I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting any company," she said as the elder Queen entered the apartment leaving her two bodyguards outside.

"I'm actually here to see Ms. Raatko."

"Oh, I'll get her for you. You can sit on the sofa while you wait."

Moira looked around the room and decided she was probably better off standing. Three minutes later a flawless Nyssa and Sara emerged from the bedroom.

"Ms. Raatko, I am Moira Queen, Oliver's mother. I understand that you wanted to see me."

"I believe you have something to ask me?" Nyssa said politely.

"Sara has raved about your abilities to profile persons and I would like you to identify a few persons for me."

"There is definitely more to it than that or you would have hired a firm to do it." Nyssa responded.

"There are a group of people within my company that are threatening both the company and my family. I will not tolerate that. My late husband's legacy is QC. I will not let them dishonour his memory. It took generations of Queens to build that company and I will not let one group of misguided individuals tear it down."

"Why me?" Nyssa asked.

"No one knows you here Mr. Raatko. I can pay you well for your services."

"It seems like you need me more than I need this job."

"I can also offer you a job at QC and with that job you can obtain a work visa so you can stay legally in the United States. If you decide you wish for something more permanent here, we would be happy to assist you with your green card and gaining your citizenship."

"That is a very tempting offer," Nyssa admitted. Part of the reason for her visit was to determine if she could move to the States to be closer to Sara.

"Karl," Moira called to her bodyguard outside who entered through the door with a stack of boxes.

"This is some of the work that Ms. Smoak and I compiled last night. Take a look and decide if you want to continue. Sara knows how to get in contact with me."

The bodyguard placed the boxes on the ground and they all left.

"Well that went well." Sara said cheerily

Nyssa turned to Sara, "You certainly have some interesting friends,"

"Hey look on the bright side, at least now you won't be bored," Sara said pointing to the boxes.

They were interrupted by another knock on the door. Nyssa arched her eyebrows at Sara, "Do you always have visitors?"

Sara shrugged, "Come in," she shouted.

Thea Queen marched in followed by John Diggle.

"Sara I need a favour." Thea said.

Sara sighed, her life seemed to be invaded by Queens today.

S-11

Oliver's first day back as himself coincided with Isabelle's return and the board meeting. He wanted to wait for the results down in IT with Felicity but he was instead stuck in his small boring office.

"Hello Oliver, it's been a long time," an unwanted voice purred at the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" he asked coldly. Isabelle was dressed in her normal business attire and she had the look of a cat that just caught the canary.

"I'm waiting for your mother to clear out of my office. The board felt she should really be based out of the CEO's office and not mine," she gloated walking into his office and sitting on the edge of his desk.

Oliver growled. His mother definitely would not take that well. He really couldn't understand why they had to do what the rest of the board said when they owned the majority of the company between them.

"You know we could celebrate?" she purred.

"No thanks,"

"If I were you Oliver, I would be very careful of the next steps I take. You could lose something very precious to you," she said turning around to exit but then she paused at the doorway and added over her shoulder, "Again,"

S-12

Oliver arrived at Felicity's place early the next morning with two cups of coffee. He rang the bell and Felicity answered.

"Mrs. Krouch I haven't seen your cat!" she said in her pyjamas swinging the door open wide.

"Hi," Oliver said to her causing her jaw to drop.

"Oh!" She responded snapping her jaw shut. She was shocked to see her boyfriend there so early.

"Coffee?" he said holding out a cup for her to take.

"Shouldn't you be on your way to QC?" she asked taking the coffee from him and inhaling the nice scent.

"Yes but I stopped to pick you up," He responded as he entered her apartment. Felicity closed the door behind him and took her first sip of her coffee. He got it just the way she liked it.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," she admitted.

"Nonsense, you come with me or I ask Debbie, the biggest gossip in the office by the way, to make dinner reservations for us at Table Salt," Oliver said with a wicked gleam.

"That's not fair Oliver!"

He smirked at her expecting her to give in but they were interrupted by the doorbell.

"Mrs. Krouch about her bloody cat," Felicity muttered.

She went to the door and opened it wide to tell her neighbour again that she hadn't seen her cat but she stopped when she saw her mother standing in front of her squealing, "My beautiful baby girl!"

"Mom, what are you doing here?" she asked horrified but her mother didn't seem to notice as she engulfed Felicity in a hug.

"I came to visit you, didn't you get my text?" Donna Smoak said pulling out her phone and shoving it in front of her daughter's face.

Felicity sighed, "Mom you actually have to press send, to send the text."

Her mother was unaffected by her daughter's less than stellar welcome and walked in to the apartment to look around. It was her first time there. She immediately noticed the tall handsome man standing by the sofa quietly taking in the scene. Her head snapped to her daughter. "You didn't tell you had company and not just any company," She said straightening out her tight blue dress.

"Mr. Queen, it's a pleasure to meet you" she said to Oliver,

"Its Oliver, and it's nice to meet you too!" he said amused, offering her his hand to shake.

Donna took hold of his hand eagerly and started shaking, "mom, Mom, MOM," Felicity said trying to get her mother to let go of Oliver. "We have to work,"

"Oh right sorry, just got a bit carried way. It's been a long time since my baby girl had a boyfriend." She declared happily.

"Mom!"

Oliver laughed.

"I'll just go now, do you want the day off?" Oliver asked Felicity.

"No, we have a lot of work to do. I'll take an hour to settle my mom here and then I'll come in."

Oliver looked like he wanted to argue with her but Felicity gave him her no nonsense look and he let the topic go. As he started walking to the door, he saw Diggle approaching the open door way with Sara.

"Diggle," Oliver said excitedly, "Meet Felicity's mom!"

Diggle looked pleasantly surprised, "So that's what all the squealing was about,"

"Oh who is this little nugget?" Donna said speaking to Sara.

"This is my daughter Sara," Diggle said proudly. "The babysitter cancelled today so she's going to work with me."

"My mom loves babies, perhaps she could baby sit for you today while we are both at work."

"That sounds like a great idea. I hope you don't mind." Diggle said to Donna.

"Sure, it's no problem. Any friend of Felicity's is a friend of mine," Donna said taking Sara from Diggle.

Soon Felicity got both guys out of her apartment and she only had her mother to deal with. She stopped, closed her eyes and took a deep breath preparing herself to deal with the whirlwind that was Donna Smoak. When she opened her eyes Donna was bouncing Sara up and down gently and looking at Felicity eagerly.

"How's the sex?" Donna asked bluntly.

S-13

The Friday night college student crowd was already half way to drunk when Nyssa entered Vertigo through the wooden graffiti laden doors in the front. Technically, she arrived by herself but she knew Diggle and Roy were already there. Oliver would be arriving an hour later. Her task tonight was to dance around, flirt and see if anybody stood out.

Half an hour into her time at the club, Roy sat beside her at the bar and she glared at him.

"What?"

"This isn't what I thought it would be like?" she had already brushed away 8 leeches, one of them was a little grabby too.

"That's because you've only been to Verdant and that is upscale. This is for poor college students, though now that I think about it, what was Thea Queen doing in a place like this?"

"That is a good question." Nyssa said as she observed the men on the dance floor. She had received many looks of interest but none of them bordered on predatory.

"Does the music have to be so bad?" Nyssa asked.

"This DJ sucks, the next one is the good one." Roy said.

An hour later, Nyssa was cursing letting Thea Queen talk her into doing this. The moment Thea had explained that there was a man preying on innocent women Nyssa volunteered to help without missing a beat. Maybe she should have given it just a little more thought. She decided to seek Roy out and perhaps slowly torture him.

"I thought you said this DJ was the good one." She said to him when she finally found him on one of the elevated areas.

"He is." Roy responded.

"I need to teach you about music, good music." Nyssa responded.

John came across to them.

"Nyssa, go and stand in that group of girls jumping in front of the DJ," Diggle suggested.

She glared at them. Those girls in front of the DJ were probably barely 18 and did not look like they even knew what the beat of the music was. "You want me to go where?"

"I have a theory and I want to test that theory, and to do that you need to go dance in that group."

"Do you mind telling me that theory?"

"Don't worry I got your back."

Nyssa moved to join a group of young girls attempting to dance in front of the DJ. She didn't consider their movements graceful at all and wondered how that could be classified as dancing.

Roy raised an eyebrow at Diggle, "What's up?"

"That DJ, you know him?"

"Yeah his name is Chase something. He's a senior in one of those subjects that you wonder why they are a major."

"I've seen him a few times on campus." Diggle explained.

"He does go to school there," Roy deadpanned.

"He's the only face here, I've seen a few times. I am not one to just assume it is a coincidence. You and I will keep an eye on Nyssa and Oliver's got one on the DJ."

About three minutes after Nyssa joined the group she understood why Diggle asked her to. She could feel his eyes on her watching her. She noticed he had turned his laptop towards her and she wondered if he was recording her. She noticed Oliver managed to do a quick walk-by behind the DJ and he frowned when he saw the screen. Yes he was definitely using the laptop to watch her.

After 15 minutes she decided she had enough and went to the bar. Before she could even sit down, he was besides her offering her a drink. Nyssa politely refused but he continued to talk to her eventually building up to asking her out on a date. She gave him the same answer she gave everyone else, "Sorry, I got a study group session at the library tomorrow."

The DJ deflated and left her alone. Nyssa smirked. The bait had just been set, time to catch the rat.

S-14

Liam was pissed because he had been called out on a Saturday morning because Mrs. Queen couldn't access the server. The elevator doors opened and he stepped out heading to the CEO's office. He found Mrs. Queen waiting for him behind her husband's desk.

"Mr. Russel, it is nice that you could join us." She said.

"Us?" he questioned, she had been the only person in the room.

"Yes, my husband, son and future daughter in-law." She said nodding behind him.

He spun around to come face to face with Oliver.

"Why don't you have a seat," Oliver said pointing to a chair in the middle of the room.

"I ..." Liam tried to say but was cut off.

"Chair," Oliver said sternly cracking his knuckles.

Liam sat quickly.

"Mr. Russel" Walter said starting the interrogation, "We are aware that you are working quite closely with Ms. Rochev. We would like to know exactly what she is planning."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Liam answered calmly.

"We have plenty of evidence," Walter said and Oliver started listing off the evidence they had gathered.

Liam still denied everything.

"You know," Felicity chirped, "This account you have in the Caymans has over 1 million dollars," She said showing him her tablet to prove she had hacked into his account.

He glared at her.

"I think maybe you should donate it to charity. Mrs. Queen what's a good charity?" she asked.

"I prefer to donate to official charities. The Red Cross is always a good one."

"Red Cross it is then!" her fingers flew over her tablet and then she showed it to Liam as his money disappeared from his account.

"Bitch!" He shouted trying to lunge for her but Oliver held him back easily.

"Uh uh uh," She said waggling her finger at him, "Bitch with WiFi," she corrected.

Moira and Walter both chuckled.

"You're a smart man Liam. I know you don't put all your eggs in one basket, that's why I also found your Swiss bank account." She showed him his account on her tablet. "Let's see what's another good charity?" she pondered, her fingers hovering over her tablet.

"Stop, I'll tell you everything." Felicity smirked.

3 hours later they were leaving the office with a pretty good idea of exactly what Isabelle was up to.

"Is that judgement on your face?" Felicity asked Oliver,

"No, Pride," he corrected her.

S-15

Nyssa was studying in the library with a group of undercover police officers that Detective Lance had arranged after both Laurel and Sara had pleaded with him to help. They had presented the evidence gathered and said they were going to confront the man with or without him. Being the protective father that he was, he chose the first option. Thea, her brothers, her bodyguard and Ms. Smoak were also keeping an eye on her.

After two hours pretending to be studying for an exam, Nyssa rose and said her goodbyes to the group. When she exited the building, she started heading towards the dorms. They had chosen the route she would take earlier in the day and she had familiarised herself with it. Even though she had memorised it, she had to admit it that it was kind of scary at night. Some of the lamps that she had thought would have been on, were off making the path much darker than she thought it would have been. She would have to rely on her sense of hearing instead of sight.

She came to a part that had high bushes on one side that could easily conceal a person. She knew if Chase was the attacker this would be the spot that he would choose. She strode confidently forward. Halfway down she heard movement in the bushes and prepared herself for the attack. Three seconds later she felt the blade of the knife pressed against her stomach as he grabbed her from behind.

"Don't move. Do exactly as I say and I won't stab you," he said to her.

She gave a weak little whimper and as soon as she felt him relax, she grabbed the wrist of his hand that was holding the knife and moved it away from her, elbowed him hard in the ribs, and spun around punching him in the face and then kicking him in the groin. He was on the floor in less time than it took him to approach her.

The police officers arrived on the scene including Detective Lance. They hauled the suspect off the floor and handcuffed him.

"That was impressive," Sara's father said.

"My father ensured that I learned self defence so that no man could ever take advantage of me." Nyssa revealed.

He nodded. He had his girls learn as well.

Thea arrived with everyone else and she swung her fist at Chase, her punch connecting with his left cheekbone.

"Ow that hurt like a bitch," she said as she cradled her hand.

"Didn't Slade teach you to punch during the intro lesson on the plane?" Oliver asked.

"I sort of slept through that portion of the lesson."

"Only that portion?" Tommy commented.

"Ok, all of it but you weren't any better."

"Nope starting tomorrow I'm taking self defence lessons. There's this guy with a gym a block away from Merlyn Global," Tommy admitted.

"Wild Cat Gyms?" Diggle asked.

"Yeah you heard of it."

"Yeah, they say he does good work."

"Good I roped Laurel into coming with me. I suppose you two have Felicity covered?"

"I taught her basic self defence when I met her but considering the company she is now keeping, Lyla and I are going to have to teach her more." Diggle said.

"I'm right here guys. Thea I'm glad you got the perp but I really got to go now. I haven't seen my mom all day." Felicity admitted.

"Do you need a ride?" Oliver asked her.

"No I came with my car. You guys finish up here. I'll call you tomorrow." She kissed Oliver goodbye and left them to tie up the loose ends there.

S-16

Felicity arrived home to find her mother packing her bags. "Mom?" she questioned her mother wasn't supposed to be leaving till next week.

"You clearly don't want me here Felicity so I'm leaving."

"Mom, that's not true,"

"Isn't it? It's the weekend and you're rushing off to work"

"It's complicated,"

"I spend more time with Sara than you! I knew taking the free ticket to come here was a bad idea but I thought it was a sign," Donna said

"What free ticket?" Felicity asked, warning bells going off in her head.

"I got the ticket in the mail. It said you won some QC internal competition and your prize was a surprise visit from me."

Felicity immediately went on alert but it was too late. The door to her apartment banged open and four large men entered with guns. Isabelle strolled in after them.

"Well, well, well, look what I found!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to DoubleDee68 and FlatBrokeCrystal for the Isabitch comment.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow

Diggle and Lyla were walking up to their apartment hand in hand when Mrs. Krouch came running up to them in a hysterical state.

"They took her!" She said waving her hands all over the place.

Lyla placed her hands on Mrs. Krouch's arms and tried to calm her down.

"They took who?" Lyla asked calmly.

"Felicity and the blonde woman!"

Lyla's eyes immediately cut to her husband's. He already had his gun drawn and he had started to approach the apartment. They had left Sara with Donna before they left for the University campus. They all thought it was a good way to keep Donna occupied while Felicity was busy.

"Mrs. Krouch, why don't you stay here for a moment, Johnny and I will take a look around ok,"

"They left, they left," she said.

Lyla pointed to the spot she was to stay and then went to back-up her husband. The door to the apartment had been kicked in causing the wooden frame to splinter. They would have to get that fixed tomorrow. She glanced around and found the area clear. She started to head down the corridor that she knew lead to the bedrooms when her husband emerged from the guest bedroom with their daughter in his arms.

"Oh Thank God!" Lyla said as relief rushed over her and she reached for her baby girl.

Diggle pulled out his phone and made a call, "Oliver, we have a problem. Get here now." His next call was to Detective Lance.

S-2

Oliver paced madly in front of the sofas in Verdant's basement. Nobody was brave enough to tell him to stop. The moment he heard Diggle's voice, dread filled his entire being and it hadn't left since. He arrived at Felicity's in record time and had nearly gone into a fit of rage when Diggle informed him that Felicity was gone. They had managed to get Mrs. Krouch to calm down enough for her to give them a description of the kidnappers. The description that they recognised immediately was that of Isabel's.

With Felicity's kidnapping his mother and Walter had decided to step up their plans. How they could think about their plan and not Felicity was beyond him but until they figured out where she was or heard from Isabel there was nothing that he could do but pace and go with the flow. His mother had called Laurel Lance and offered her all of the information they had gathered thus far in exchange for a deal to guarantee that none of them got charged with any offences. They weren't quite sure they had gathered enough information yet but they insisted that if Isobel was stepping up her game then they needed to act now and declare everything before Isobel started spinning her web of lies to the authorities.

Laurel was currently interviewing all the managers they had flipped to their side and all the documented evidence they had uncovered. It was amazing how many people started yapping when you threatened them with jail time.

Oliver's phone rang with a number that he didn't recognise and he placed the phone on speaker.

"Hello," he barked into the phone,

"Now that isn't the way to greet the persons that's holding your girlfriend and her mother hostage, is it?" Isabel's voice purred from the other end of the line.

Oliver looked up at Detective Lance immediately. They started a trace on the call.

"I want to speak to Felicity," Oliver said.

"Oh is lover boy upset that his toy was taken away from him?" Isabel teased.

"Felicity is not a toy," he said through gritted teeth.

"Good then you'll be willing to confess to all of the crimes you're trying to pin on me." She said.

"Those are crimes you committed," Oliver responded.

"I think you'll change your mind about that once you speak to Felicity," Isabel said.

There was silence on the other end of the line until he heard the voice he was dying to hear.

"Oliver don't do anything she asks," Felicity said bravely.

Suddenly she started screaming and Oliver panicked. He had no idea what they were doing to her. He was yelling into the phone for Isabel to stop and leave her alone.

"Are you satisfied?" Isabel asked. He could hear the smirk in her voice.

"I'll say anything you want me to as long as Felicity is returned unharmed," he said.

"Good and you'll also sign over your portion of the company over to me."

Moira frowned at the request.

"Done, where do I meet you?" he asked.

"In my new house or should I say your old one," "Oh and Oliver, come alone," she hung up abruptly.

"The trace is done" Lance said, "She is at.."

"my house," Oliver finished.

"Did you record all of that Detective? This bitch is not getting out of this with my company." Moira said.

"Don't worry Mrs. Queen, I think you gathered enough evidence to put everyone behind bars for a long time. And don't worry , none of you are going to jail," Laurel reassured her as she entered the basement with a stack of manila folders. "These are everyone's get out of jail free cards. I suggest you sign them now."

"Good, we need a plan," Diggle said cracking his knuckles, "Nobody hurts Felicity and gets away with it."

S-3

Oliver drove the town car down the winding road to his house. He had to admit he had never arrived home like this. Usually he was in the back seat being driven. As soon as he stopped at the main entrance he jumped out of the car and headed to the front door. He was stopped by a group of security guards he had never seen before. They searched him and the car and then guided him towards the dining room where he found Isabel eating at the head of the table. Both Felicity and her mother were gagged and tied and forced to sit on either side of her, each with a security guard standing three feet behind them. Even though they were incapacitated, Isabel had still served a plate of food in front of them.

"You made it! I was beginning to think you either got lost or decided Felicity wasn't worth it. After all, with a mother like that," she threw a disdainful glance at Donna, "I would understand why you would dump her."

Loud muffled protests erupted from Felicity and Oliver didn't need to think too hard to know what his girlfriend was saying to Isabel.

"Unlike you, Felicity is worth it," Oliver said as Felicity continued to protest.

"Enough," Isabel snapped towards Felicity.

A security guard stepped forward and yanked downwards hard on her ponytail eliciting a cry of pain from her. Oliver clenched his fists. He wanted to charge the man but that wasn't part of the plan. Diggle had emphasised to him that if he wanted Felicity back safely he had to follow the plan no matter how much Isabel goaded him to act. Even if he could take out the guys standing behind him, he would not be able to get to Felicity and Donna in time.

"I believe you wanted me to make a confession." Oliver said.

"Yes but first let's eat. It's time to celebrate my victory." Isabel said.

"Do you really think you've won?" Oliver asked her.

"Of course I have. I know you went the police to cut a deal. I know your confession under duress won't stand up in court but while you were busy handling that, I made sure that if I couldn't get Queen Consolidated, no one could." She smiled evilly.

"What did you do Isabel?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter now. You have no idea how long I've wanted to see the Queen family brought to their knees. Your father was supposed to be with me and he would have been with me if it weren't for that stupid heart attack. He would have left that frigid bitch you call a mother and married me." She said.

"The only frigid bitch I know is you!" Oliver retorted.

"Careful Oliver, insults against me will have consequences for Felicity," Isabel said nodding to the security guard who came forward and yanked on Felicity's pony tail again, this time her head hit against the back of the chair as well. Donna was making plenty of noise and glaring at Isabel. The guard behind her chair had stepped forward to restrain her into the chair.

Oliver tensed. A plate of food was brought out by a worried looking Raisa and placed on the other end of the dining table opposite Isabel.

"Please master Oliver, sit and eat," Raisa pleaded with him. There was a large bruise forming on her face and he wondered which one of the security guards had abused her. He would make them all pay.

Oliver reluctantly sat down as Isabel used her steak knife to cut her steak.

"This is delicious. You really do have a good cook." Isabel said taking another piece of steak off of her plate and eating it. She looked up at her guests around the table, "Why isn't anyone eating? Do you need a knife Oliver?" she asked before she threw the knife across the table with perfect aim at Oliver's throat. Both Donna and Felicity screamed into their gags.

Oliver caught the knife easily, without even flinching, and used the knife to cut a piece of steak and eat it, "Yes it does taste good but it won't be as good as seeing you in jail," he said calmly.

If Isabel was surprised he caught the knife, she didn't show it.

"Ah you are mistaken Oliver, I will never see the inside of a jail cell, you however, I'm not so sure about. It will be difficult to convince the authorities that you didn't have a hand in all this," she said.

Oliver smirked, "But I already have. There is no getting away Isabel. Give me Felicity and her mother and they'll be lenient on you."

Isabel snorted and snapped her fingers. The security guards dragged Felicity and Donna from their chairs and walked with Isabel towards one of the exits.

"Where are you going?" Oliver asked.

Isabel smirked, "Why don't you follow us and find out?"

They walked through the mansion to what Oliver realised was the garage. There were four town cars parked up each exactly alike. Isabelle entered one, Donna entered one, Felicity entered one and the security guards entered another.

"Good bye Oliver," Isabel said.

"Wait, you're supposed to give me back Felicity!" he said.

She smirked, "Once I'm safely out of the country you'll get her back, or maybe pieces of her, I'm not quite sure if I'm in a benevolent mood or not."

Oliver knew the time to make his move was now. As soon as the garage doors began to open, Oliver took out the two security guards closest to him. The first car with the security guards exited first, followed by Isabel's. He ran to the other side of the garage to where they stored their sports equipment and retrieved his bow and arrow. He loved archery when he was a kid and Shado had trained him to shoot with deadly accuracy. By the time he strapped on the quiver the cars were halfway down the driveway. He ran behind them. The first two arrows went into the back tires of the nearest car. That was the one carrying Donna. He ran around that car and sent another quickly at the next car, Felicity's car before it disappeared through the front gate. The sound of a police siren outside indicated that the police had stopped the other cars.

He didn't stop running until he reached Felicity's car. He wrenched the door open and found her alone in the backseat. He pulled her out and hugged her. He had been so scared. He untied and removed the gag.

"Are you injured?" he asked.

"I don't think so but I have one hell of headache. Do I have any hair left on my head?" she asked swinging her head from him to inspect.

He laughed, "I don't care if you have hair or not, you're alive and that's all I need to know.

They were soon joined by Diggle, "Isabel wasn't in the cars," he revealed.

"But I saw her get into the second one," Oliver protested breaking the hug he had with Felicity to face Diggle.

"She must have slipped out when you weren't looking," Diggle replied calmly.

"So you mean she got away?" Oliver asked angrily.

"It's ok," Felicity said placing her hand on his forearm, "I know exactly where she's going."

"My baby girl," Donna screamed as she reached her daughter. Lyla had retrieved her.

"Mom," Felicity said hugging her tight.

S-4

Felicity and her mother were in a private room of the hospital sponsored by Moira Queen. The doctors had run detailed tests and they were concerned Felicity might have a slight concussion. Oliver hadn't left them alone since they arrived at the hospital and Felicity thought he must be bored. They were interrupted when Moira and Thea arrived with flowers and a get well card.

"Mrs. Queen!" Felicity said.

"Felicity I told you to call me Moira," she said firmly.

Felicity gave her a bashful smile, "Moira, you didn't need to do all of this for me?"

"Nonsense dear, you're family now and the Queens take care of family."

Felicity smiled and she felt her mother nudge her on her side. It was time to bite the bullet and introduce her mother to Moira.

"Moira, this is my mother Donna. Mom this is Oliver's mom."

Donna's eyes lit up and Felicity knew something embarrassing was going to happen but she was pleasantly surprised when Donna toned down her response, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Moira smiled, "Perhaps we can do lunch next week. I'm sure there are many stories we can share about our children."

"Oh I got some great stories about Ollie," Thea supplied.

"I'm sure I can top those. You'll be surprised to hear some of the tangles my daughter got herself caught into. There was this drug dealer once" Donna started before Felicity interrupted her.

"None of those stories! I was a child and I didn't even know who he was. Oh look, there's Detective Lance," Felicity said successfully redirecting the conversation.

She couldn't help but notice her mother flip her hair and straighten out her appearance some more. Felicity rolled her eyes. Suddenly she suspected her mother's trip to Starling City was going to be extended.

"Warrants have been issued for Ms. Rochev's arrest as well as others involved in this plot. I reviewed the recording we have of the conversation at your house. Do you have any idea how she planned to destroy your company?"

"Yes," Felicity answered, "She was going to funnel all of the money out of the company to various accounts she has across the globe. She would have left QC penniless unable to pay any debts. The numerous contracts we would have defaulted on would have caused a legal nightmare. The stock price would have plummeted and the only source of funds would have been the physical assets that company held. We would have been ripe for a corporate takeover."

"But that's not going to happen?" Lance asked.

"Nope," Felicity said popping her p. "We knew what she planned to do. We flipped Liam early so I was able to set up programmes that made it look like the money was transferred. When she checked her bank accounts, it would appear to her that the money was there, except it wasn't."

"I would love to see her face when she finds out," Moira commented. Donna agreed.

Felicity smiled evilly, "That can be arranged."

S-5

The next day Isabel was seated at an expensive restaurant that overlooked the ocean. It was late afternoon and the sun was hanging low in the sky. The sunset was supposed to be spectacular. The meal was excellent and when she was satisfied that she had spent enough time soaking in the atmosphere, she requested the bill. She placed her credit card on the counter and the waiter swiped it. She entered her pin and waited for the transaction to go through. The transaction was declined. They tried three more before she pulled out two other cards. To her utter horror, none of them worked. Isabel was livid and she grew tenser when a perky blonde with glasses sat down opposite her.

"Here try my card, I'll pick up the tab this time for her," Felicity said to the waiter and handed him her card. She then slid a cell phone across the table to Isabel. "I suggest you call your bank. You'll find that you have no funds. Brazil may not have any extradition treaties with the States but I don't know how you're going to survive here with no money."

"You're lying," she accused the blonde.

"Talk to you banker, I found every single account, even the one you were hiding under an assumed name in South Africa."

Isabel lunged for the blonde but she was held back by the strong arms of Oliver Queen. "I could end you very easily for what you tried to do Isabel," He said in a serious voice.

"Then do it," she goaded.

"No I think watching you try to live in a foreign country with no funds might indeed be the best punishment.

The waiter finished with Felicity's card and handed it back to her.

"Time to go home Oliver," Felicity said.

He beamed at her, "Yes dear," he released Isabel and they started walking away from Isabel when Felicity stopped and looked over her shoulder, "I'm monitoring your movements. The minute you leave Brazil, we'll have you brought back to face your charges. Oh and I suggest you get a job, I hear the cafe down the street is looking for waitresses."

Isabel let out a scream of frustration that brought a smile to both of their faces. "You think they received that video clip?" Oliver asked Felicity. He had a pin on his jacket that was a video camera that was supposed to be broadcasting a live feed back to the others in Starling City.

"Yeap, now let's enjoy this night," she said to him with a seductive smile. He didn't have to be told twice.

Oliver and Felicity walked off hand in hand down the beach into the sunset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the chapter is shorter than the rest but I really couldn't find any way to extend it. The epilogue is almost complete. It will be up next week. Thanks for reading.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Arrow

It was the day of his presentation and Oliver had never felt so nervous before. His entire family was there including Felicity and her mother with Detective Lance. His Professor had also invited the President of the University and the heads of the other departments. This project would determine whether he passed or failed. He had decided to start his presentation as Olivia. It would be the last time he ever dressed as her, or at least he hoped so. You never knew when you had Thea for a sister and Felicity for a girlfriend.

He stood in front of the packed auditorium dressed as Olivia. None of the students had been informed about the presentation order so they all assumed she was just another student. Oliver purposely skipped the title slide and went straight into his presentation, QC Family Business. It was cliché and Oliver wanted that. He wanted to start off cliché and then surprise everyone. He had the required references and he even referenced a book that the President of the University wrote. He went through the theory in detail before starting the practical application. He pulled off his mask to various gasps from his fellow students.

"Do you think differently of me now than you did before?" he tossed out at the audience.

He explained that he entered his father's company Queens Consolidated as Olivia Harper and worked as a Secretary. He was treated completely different, both because of his background and gender.

"You know I always heard women talking about the glass ceiling and quoting statistics about working harder and longer but being paid less. I always thought it was a load of crap but you know that saying about walking a mile in another person's shoe, it's totally true. I got to see the company from a unique perspective that I couldn't see before. I got to see the hard work that my employees put in and the poor rewards they got in return."

"My father was praised for his business prowess. He saved QC $100million when he stiffed those steel factory workers on their pensions. It was one of those factory workers that was manipulated into taking his life. If someone told me today that for $100 million dollars I could get my father back, I would pay it on the spot. QC could have easily afforded to the $100million over the course of time. We could have taken care of our workers but we didn't. In the end QC paid dearly for that as the murder of my father caused the share price to drop and investors to back out of several projects. It took years to get the company stable again only to have the recent fraudulent activities ruin the company's reputation again."

"But don't worry, I'm going to put the company back together again but I'm going to follow the recommendations of my thesis. QC has been viewed as the Queen Family business, I want to make it a family business. Everyone at work is part of an extended family. I've added a lot of support services for staff in the last month. My friend, Dr. Nyssa Raatko who is in the audience, is part of a team of counsellors to help my colleagues deal with stress. There was a lot of uncertainty after the senior managers were fired over who would lose their jobs. We had to reassure that staff that didn't do anything illegal would not be penalised. Half of my new managers are women. They are women who I saw working harder than their colleagues and not getting recognised for their efforts. Two of them are under 30 which is unusual but they had good ideas and we're giving them the chance to be innovative. We also hired more persons from our local community. Roy Harper is a good example of that. He just finished his first year of Starling University and he's working as an intern in the Marketing Department being mentored by one of the best marketing minds in the country."

"There were a lot of single parents working at the company, both female and male. I added a day care centre and an afterschool homework centre. It has given those staff members more flexibility at work. Since I actually have the benefit of having started to implement my recommendations, I conducted the same anonymous staff survey again and as you can see, employee satisfaction has increased. Productivity and efficiency has also improved. With the help of the fine Professors in the economics department we did a cost benefit analysis of the money QC is spending on the support services versus the output from staff. At the moment we are barely breaking even which is good because staff is happy and it's not costing us to do that but I'm hoping with some tweaking and adjustment we can prove to other companies that by doing this, you can boost your profit margins."

"Your employees are people, they aren't just cogs in the machine that you can keep replacing when they burn out. It costs time and money to keep retraining persons not to mention a high turnover of staff results in loyalty and trust issues. Treat your employees well and they'll treat you well. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I can assure you I learned a lot from this class and this University,"

Oliver received a standing ovation from the audience. His family and friends had never looked prouder of him and he realised he had never been happier in life. Sure he had an uphill battle with the company but he knew with their support he was going to turn everything around.

As Oliver closed his presentation on the laptop another one started opening up. The face of his sister appeared on the screen.

"Hi Ollie," she said. "Sorry about this, well no not really, but you sent me to a deserted island for my spring break and Tommy and I decided we needed revenge. So enjoy!"

The screen started showing the video Thea had taken of his transformation into Olivia and the audience erupted in laughter. They particularly enjoyed the waxing part and the video did all sorts of fancy cuts and repeats in slow motion of that scene. There were also plenty of scenes that had been taken from QC security cameras that showed the reactions of men as he passed them. The most common reaction had been to check out his ass and legs. He had to admit, he hadn't realised so many men had been drawn to him. His eyes cut to Felicity who gave him a guilty look.

1 year later

Oliver drove Felicity through the winding valley out to a house that held a vineyard. It was a family owned business that had their own winery and offered a bed and breakfast service. They were scheduled to have dinner on the veranda of the house that overlooked the vines and stay the weekend but before that Oliver wanted to give Felicity a tour of the facilities.

QC was doing well and if things continued on its current trend they would make the 10 year target goal that Robert had set before he died. Isabel was still stuck in Brazil, working as a waitress in a small cafe. Their contacts there constantly kept them updated on her activities. Thea was officially dating Roy and both had successfully completed their second year of university. Nyssa and Sara were still going strong. Verdant was now one of the top clubs in the country. Tommy and Laurel were engaged now with the wedding set for the next month.

He and Felicity were slowly walking between a row of grape vines hand in hand as the sun set.

"So do you like it here?" Oliver asked.

"Yes it's lovely," she said smiling at him.

"Good it's yours," he told her.

"You bought me a vineyard?" Felicity asked surprised.

"Yes I like to keep my promises to you," Oliver replied dropping a kiss on her forehead.

She vaguely remembered the night at Verdant with the bottle of scotch.

"What are we going to do with a vineyard?" she asked curiously her head tilted to the side.

"I have a few ideas but the main one is a vacation home for our family. Felicity, I want to make a few more promises to you, will you marry me?" Oliver asked,

"What no ring?" she teased.

"Thea suggested that I ask you first and then we could choose rings together, with Thea's advice of course."

Felicity smiled at him, "She knows that I don't want a diamond. I'm thinking I want a blue gem stone the exact colour of your eyes so that I'm always reminded of you not that I could ever forget about you. You're always on my mind ..." She said.

"So is that a yes?" he cut her off hopefully.

"Of course it's a yes silly!" she said slapping his arm playfully.

He scooped her up into his arms and kissed her senseless.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. This is also posted at ff.net. Six chapters are up over there. I'll post chapter 2 here next week. I have to re-read my word copy to make sure its still accurate. I sometimes make changes in the editor and not the word copy.


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